The district administration has made elaborate arrangements for the counting of votes, polled in the municipal elections, at Andhra University on March 14. The preparation at the counting rooms at the centres was completed on Saturday.
District Collector V. Vinay Chand inspected the counting rooms along with Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) Commissioner S. Nagalakshmi here on Saturday night. He discussed about the arrangements for the counting procedure.
He asked the officials to conduct the counting as per the prescribed guidelines without fail and ensure transparency.
It may be remembered that the district administration has separated the locations zone-wise. In north campus of the university, counting for zones 2,3,4 and 6 will be done, while in the South campus, the counting for zones 1,5,7 and 8 will be performed. The officials have allotted 98 rooms on the AU campus for the counting process of 98 wards of GVMC. Videographers will film the counting procedure at all rooms. An exclusive command control centre has been set up. The overall counting is expected to take at least 12 hours.
Tight security has been arranged at the counting centre. The traffic police have arranged for parking of vehicles at various places to ensure free flow of traffic.
Meanwhile, Narsipatnam Sub Collector N Mourya said that all arrangements were made at the Government Degree College at Narsipatnam, where the counting of votes polled for the Narsipatnam municipality would be held. She inspected the centre ahead of the counting along with Narsipatnam Municipal Commissioner N. Kanaka Rao and Narsipatnam Inspector Swamy Naidu on Saturday.
She instructed all the officials to be present at the counting centre by 6.30 a.m. She said that there should not be any power interruption and also asked the officials to arrange two generators on the premises. The counting procedure would be completely captured on video, she said.
All the staff were provided proper training, she added.
