Taking a step forward towards the introduction of online voting in the Country with an objective of bringing totally error free and authenticated electoral roll, National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) was launched by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on March 3, 2015. Jharkhand, taking a lead from the other States in the Country has succeeded in collecting maximum of 74, 78000 Adhaar data from the voters till February 23.
“Out of a total of 80-85 per cent of the electors possessing Aadhaar numbers, around 40 per cent of them have been covered by us, while the rest of 40-45 per cent electors will be covered soon in the state,” said Chief Electoral Officer PK Jajoria. According to Jajoria, the ECI has fixed a deadline of August 15 of this year before which the seeding of Aadhar numbers with the EPIC numbers has to be done which will be reviewed by it from time to time.
Major objectives of NERPAP are to link and authenticate the EPIC data of electors with Aadhar data of UIDAI. Besides that the programme also gives an opportunity to voluntarily disclose multiple entries pertaining to them and disposal of such cases within 15 days by the concerned authority. “Otherwise, there is a provision of penalty as well as imprisonment if someone is found of having their names at two different places for making false declaration under section 31 of People’s Representation Act of 1950,” Jajoria added.
Under the programme, mobile numbers and e-mail addresses of electors is also being collected to facilitate them with periodic information of polling day, revision schedule and notices etc, he said. According to Jajoria, special nationwide booth level camps will be organised in all Assembly Constituencies across the Country on April 12, which will be continued on any Sunday of every month as fixed by the CEO of the state.
“Special observers appointed by the ECI will review the programme from time to time,” said the CEO. Feeding of Aadhar numbers in EPIC database could be done voluntarily using the web services through the site of EC, messaging to 51969, calling on the toll free number – 1950 to state call centers or by submitting a hard copy of a duly filled format along with the photocopy of both the documents.
“For those who do not have an access to web or mobile phones, door to door collection of duly filled in forms will be done by the electoral machineries like Booth level Officers (BlOs) or Voter Facilitation Centres, e-Seva centers and Citizen Service Centers authorised by the District Electoral Officers,” Jajoria added. Jajoria further said that methodology adopted by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to link Aadhar data with the EPIC data can simultaneously be adopted along with national model.
“For an efficient implementation of the Programme, Booth Awareness Group (BAG) has also to be formed consisting of the booth level government officials, representatives of the local bodies, School heads of the area so that the electors could be made aware of the programme,” he added.