Ranchi: The Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO’s) office in Jharkhand, in its preparation for special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, is in the process of correcting all discrepancies so that people can go through the SIR process smoothly as and when it happens.The state has approximately 2.65 crore voters, and a total of 6.72 lakh mistakes were found in the voter list, according to state CEO K Ravi Kumar.
Speaking to TOI, Kumar said, “Of the total 6.72 lakh mistakes, photographs of 5.44 lakh people are either blurred or improper, 1.28 lakh people have mistakes in their names and addresses, and the process is on to correct all those.”He also said that 4.84 lakh applications were received so far for correction of the mistakes, and around 3.54 lakh cases were disposed of so far.As for the rest of the people with various kinds of mistakes in their EPIC cards, some shifted to other places, some are missing, and some live elsewhere, the CEO added.Notably, as per instructions of the CEO, work on improvement of voter photo quality in the electoral rolls is ongoing in Jharkhand.In addition to this, out of the 2.65 crore total voters in Jharkhand, 1.93 crore voters are already mapped with the previous SIR electoral roll, which will reduce the burden on voters to submit documents along with the enumeration forms during the enumeration phase, the CEO told TOI.During a recent meeting with the deputy electoral officers (DyEOs), the CEO gave instructions to improve voter photo quality by using the BLO app, officials at the CEO’s office said.Sources in the CEO’s office said this exercise is most probably part of the preparations related to Special Intensive Revision (SIR). At present, SIR was carried out across various states in the country. They added that the SIR process in Jharkhand may be deferred since the same process in the neighbouring state of West Bengal was extended.The final electoral roll after the SIR exercise in West Bengal was supposed to be published on Feb 14, but the deadline was extended further, the sources said.
