Pune: Shashikant Chaudhary, a BLO for parts of Punawale in Pimpri Chinchwad, felt tiredness and relief sweep over him on Sunday evening. “Monday is the last day for the field exercise of SIR. Our camps in housing societies received a good response. It was a long weekend, and many people called for additional information or came to our camp to fill out their forms, as they will return to work on Monday. Many IT professionals in the area had their names registered in their respective states and filled out their forms there,” he said.The clock is ticking on the extended Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, a last-minute rush was witnessed at polling centres across Pune on Sunday as voters turned up to submit forms, check their status and seek help from BLOs.BLOs were stationed at polling booths over the weekend as the election machinery made a final push to reach voters before the field exercise ends on Aug 17. Yet, despite forms distributed to almost the entire 90.8 lakh electorate, 28,97,644 (32%) enumeration forms in Pune remained uncollectable.BLOs said incomplete addresses had emerged as a major hurdle in tracing voters in several assembly constituencies. “In many cases, the address available with us is incomplete, making it impossible to trace the voter. Such voters too have ended up in the ASDDO list,” one of them said.In the state, 2.05 (21.3%) crore forms of the total were uncollectable or in the absent-shifted-deceased-duplicate or others (ASDDO) category as of 9am on Sunday. The State CEO’s daily bulletin stated that 7.68 crore forms have been digitised and the uncollectable share remains particularly high in urban districts, reflecting difficulties in tracing voters and collecting forms before the Aug 17 deadline.The gap is widest in Mumbai City, where 37.8% of forms remain uncollectable, followed by Thane at 37.7%, Mumbai Suburban at 34.4% and Pune at 32%. Among other districts, Raigad has 23.4% uncollectable forms, while Nashik has 20.1%. In contrast, several districts did well. These include Hingoli (8.8%), Buldhana (9%), Ratnagiri (9.9%) and Latur (10.5%).Voters whose names do not figure in the draft roll need not panic. “Once the draft roll is published on Aug 24, they can check for their names and submit Form 6 for enrolment. Since there are no immediate elections, they will have the opportunity to get back on the electoral roll,” a BLO said.Officials said being listed as uncollectable or under ASDDO does not mean deletion. Voters can file claims and objections between Aug 24 and Sept 23 if their names are missing or details need correction. BLOs have been given additional time till Aug 19 to complete digitisation.Activist Rohan Desai said awareness about the ASDDO lists was poor. “Many citizens are not even aware that these lists exist and have not checked them. They struggled to locate the links to their ASDDO lists,” he said.BLOs from different areas witnessed mixed responses to the SIR registration campaign on Sunday. Most said that there were no large crowds in their jurisdictions. Issues such as wrong addresses, migration of workers, multiple entries, and duplicate names have impacted the overall count and response rate.“The footfall was good, but there was no last-minute rush for registration. The staff on SIR duty are working hard to complete the process for non-traceable voters. We may get a better response on Monday, the last day of registration,” Avdhoot Deshpande, a BLO from the Balewadi area, said.
