In order to depute Government employees to 1725 polling booths in Dehradun district, the randomisation of 7824 presiding officers and polling officers was conducted Vidhan Sabha-wise in the presence of Election Commission of India’s observers on Tuesday. Dehradun election officer Ravinath Raman said that out of 7824 employees, 7096 were appointed on election duty while 728 were kept on reserve for completing the election in the district in an unbiased manner.
A total of 242 polling teams- each comprising one presiding and three polling officers- will be deployed for conducting Assembly election in Chakrata Vidhan Sabha Assembly constituency while the numbers of such teams are 149 in Vikasnagar, 202 in Sahaspur, 216 in Dharmapur, 209 in Raipur, 165 in Rajpur Road, 151 in Dehradun Cantt, 180 in Mussoorie, 190 in Doiwala and 198 in Rishikesh.
Raman said that women employees have been freed from the election duty except duty at polling centres to be set up at the government-run homes for the distressed women- Nari Niketan.
At other places, women employees will be deputed based on necessity. Employees appointed on election duty of Dharampur constituency will be given training on Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).
VVPAT is a printer-like machine attached to every EVM that allows voters to verify that their vote has been cast correctly. Once a voter presses button of his choice in the EVM, a printed paper appears containing the name of the candidate and poll symbol to enable him to verify it. After the voter views the receipt it goes inside a container linked to the EVM, which can be accessed only by the polling officers. This lateast system is one step further towards prevention of electoral fraud.
Raman said that presiding officers and polling officers will be given election duty chart before they will leave for the polling stations concerned. “Voters can learn about the location of their polling booths and names in the electoral list through Dehradun Votes App,” he added.
Others present on the occasion were ECI’s observers Rajesh Kumar Kaul, RD Nazim, Manish Kumar Gupta, Sl Amrani, Neelam Meena, Dr B Ashok, expenditure observer Hemant Meena, Dilip Kumar and Police observer JP Joshi, Dehradun CDO Banshidhar Tiwari, ADM (administration) Barbeer Singh and ADM (finance) Veer Singh Buddhiyal aside from the representatives of various political parties.