A project of rationalising polling stations and re-organising parts and sections of electoral rolls, using Geo-Information System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS), will be taken up in eight districts initially.
Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchi, Salem, Tirunelveli Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram, all of which are having large urban agglomerations, will be covered in the initial phase. This will be completed in four months. If required, mid-course refinement will be carried out and the remaining districts will be covered in phases, according to Naresh Gupta, Chief Electoral Officer.
By undertaking this exercise, the hardship faced by people in exercising their franchise and officials in dealing with applications for inclusion and modification of the rolls would be greatly reduced, Mr Gupta said, addressing a press conference here.
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The Centre for Geographic Information Technologies in the School of Geosciences of the Bharatidasan University, Tiruchi, took up a pilot project in the Tiruchi district’s Manapparai Assembly constituency, which was a predominantly rural setting. At present, the Ambattur constituency, an entirely urban setting, was being covered and this work was nearing completion.
The pilot project revealed that the relocation of the polling stations enabled the reduction in the travel distance for the voters by 37 per cent. It would also facilitate decongestion of the stations on election day, leading to better management of law and order.
Using GIS, another project of mapping of the location of polling stations, important roads and public buildings, rail lines, rivers and major water bodies all over the State was nearing completion. In 2008, a pilot study of Tiruvallur district was carried out by the Department of Geology in Bharatidasan University.
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Mr Gupta and Pooja Kulkarni, Joint CEO, explained their department’s another project of migration of electoral rolls database from MS (Microsoft)-Access to MS SQL (Structured Query Language) Server. The migration would improve search capabilities and analytical process. [For example, a voter’s name could be searched across parts of the rolls, constituencies and districts].
Ms. Kulkarni said that under the existing system, voters’ names in two languages - Tamil and English - and their images were kept in separate folders. While preparing the electoral rolls, the data had to be compiled from the different folders. In the process, mismatch cropped up in some instances. But, in the new system, all the data regarding the voters would be maintained in the same folder, eliminating the scope for mismatch.
Mr Gupta said the search for multiple entries was, till now, restricted to an assembly constituency or a district. Once the new system is in place, this could be done all over the State.
On the status of the exercise, he said that verification of the migrated records with source records had been taken up, after which the integration of the mother roll with supplementary rolls, used for the Lok Sabha election, would be effected. All these would take a few more weeks. Subsequently, the freeze on the rolls database updation would be lifted.
Instructed to prepare database
The Tuticorin District Collector has been instructed to prepare the database of the polling personnel and communication plan for the Tiruchendur (pre-delimited) Assembly constituency, which will have to witness the by-election latest by January 31, according to Naresh Gupta, Chief Electoral Officer.
Vulnerability mapping would also be taken up by the district administration to identify and map the sensitive areas for putting in place special measures. As done in the case of the by-elections in August, it had been proposed to have live recording and SMS-based system for monitoring of polling stations, Mr Gupta said.