Based on an idea implemented by the Dakshina Kannada administration to use students as volunteers for webcasting the Karnataka State Legislative Assembly elections, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued a circular to other districts to follow the same, Harsh Gupta, Deputy Commissioner told The Hindu on Sunday.
He said, “They (ECI) issued that students from engineering colleges can be used after we sent our proposal on the same lines. The mail was issued by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office on May 1.” (Earlier, webcasting was restricted to government officials.) “But I don’t know if others have followed up,” he said.
Mr. Gupta said the administration wanted to initiate webcasting in Mangalore as “good resources are availableK.V. Halagappa, District Nodal Officer for webcasting, in the Control Room in Canara School, Urwa, who oversaw webcasting in the district’s eight Assembly segments, said. Mangalore City South constituency is unique as webcasting facility in all 208 polling stations in the constituency is a first-time in the country.
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Webcams witness events inside the booth; any violation gets known and becomes evidence for further action, he said.
Ashwin Kumar Rai, Senior System Analyst, National Informatics Centre (NIC), said webcasting enables online monitoring. If anything goes wrong, officials can rush in.
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Bincy George Abraham and Deepak James, NIT-K students live-streaming from booths in University College, said thick walls made internet connectivity through WiFi an issue.