Chief Electoral Officer, Jharkhand, K Ravi Kumar held a meeting with Deputy Electoral Officers of all districts in his auditorium situated at the headquarters on Friday. The meeting was called with the objective of assessing any unexpected shortcomings that remained during the last Lok Sabha elections and to discuss ways to rectify them and to increase the voting percentage in the upcoming assembly elections.

The CEO said that all the officers and employees associated with the elections have played an important role in conducting the Lok Sabha elections in the state in a fair, fearless and peaceful manner. He said that preparations for the upcoming assembly elections should be started from now itself. In this regard, the Booth Awareness Groups and ELC Groups formed during the Lok Sabha elections will have to be activated. He instructed that the name and number of the concerned Booth Level Officer should be inscribed on the walls of government buildings etc, so that any voter can easily contact the BLO of his area.

He said that in view of the assembly elections, the cut-off date for publication of the voter list is being kept as 1st October. Before this date, go door-to-door and revise the voters. During this period, the names of all voters of urban and rural areas should be matched with the voter list and new voters should be added along with the names of voters who have shifted or who have died should be updated in the list.

The CEO said that the officers should themselves physically inspect the polling stations where voting is less than 80 per cent. He said that before the Lok Sabha elections, a social audit team conducted a survey of minimum facilities at the polling stations and a survey was conducted again three days before the polling. He directed all the Deputy Election Officers to ensure minimum facilities at 100 per cent polling stations as per the instructions of the Election Commission of India.

Kumar said that ensure timely payment to the polling personnel and owners of vehicles engaged in polling work as per the rules. Also, if the personnel engaged in polling work suddenly falls ill, then ensure their cashless treatment. Also, in case of loss of life or property of any employee associated with polling work, ensure to give ex-gratia grant to the family members by following the guidelines of the Election Commission of India.

On this occasion, Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dr. Neha Arora, Joint Chief Electoral Officer Subodh Kumar, OSD Geeta Chaubey, Assistant Chief Electoral Officer Dev Das Dutta, Deputy Electoral Officer (Headquarters) Sanjay Kumar and Deputy Electoral Officers of all districts were present. Other officers and workers associated with the election work in the districts were also connected to the meeting through video conferencing.