With just 48 hours left for the first phase of local bodies’ poll, the State Election Commission (SEC) with the able assistance of the National Informatics Centre has completed deployment of 1,37,665 officials for election duty in 34,423 polling stations across the State.
Out of this, 78,352 are male officials and 59,313 are females. As against 34,408 presiding officers, there are 34,417 first polling officers and 68,840 polling officers.
Besides, the SEC has kept a reserve of 20,008 officials, including 5,117 presiding officers, 5,199 first polling officers and 9,692 polling officers. Of the total officials on reserve, 15,129 are females and 4,879 males.
The SEC managed to complete a previously laborious task in quick time, thanks to eDROP, a product developed by NIC Thrissur, which was later adopted as the official solution for posting and deployment of staff for election.
Of the total number of polling officials, 77,087, which accounted for more than half, were deployed in 19,272 polling stations spread over six districts. In each of these districts, the number of polling officials exceeded the 10,000-mark.
Malappuram district with 15,643 polling officials topped the list followed by Thrissur with 13,192 officials, Thiruvananthapuram 13,020 officials, Ernakulam 12,416 officials, Kozhikode 11,868 and Kollam with 10,948 officials.
NIC had initially compiled a list of 4.55 lakh officials out of which the e-DROP eventually deployed 1.37 lakh after accounting for various exemptions and cancellations as per the guidelines issued by the SEC. There still remains a balance of 64,985 ‘usable’ officials after the deployment.
While 3,286 employees were exempted on account of serious illness, 12,817 were exempted owing to prolonged illness. Another 1,776 who had undergone cardiac surgery, 6,858 lacerating mothers of children aged below one year, and 2,222 in advanced stages of pregnancy of more than seven months were also been exempted.
