Daltonganj: The Palamu administration is closely monitoring 213 trans-border polling booths located in neighbouring Garhwa district during the enumeration process for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.Of the two assembly constituencies in Palamu with trans-border booths, Bishrampur accounts for the largest share with 158 booths spread across Kandi, Bardeeha and Majhiaon blocks of Garhwa district. Election officials said distribution of electoral forms in these booths has been largely successful, though digitisation remains a challenge.According to official data, pendency in distribution of electoral forms on Monday evening stood at 1.57% in Kandi, 0.60% in Bardeeha and 3.91% in Majhiaon.The three Garhwa blocks together account for a substantial voter base linked to Bishrampur assembly constituency. There are 67,948 electors in Kandi, 29,818 in Bardeeha and 58,779 in Majhiaon, all of whom vote in Palamu’s Bishrampur constituency despite having postal addresses in Garhwa district.However, the pace of digitisation has lagged behind distribution. Official figures showed pendency in digitisation of filled electoral forms at 40.19% in Kandi, 35.69% in Bardeeha and 29.95% in Majhiaon.Bishrampur electoral registration officer (ERO) Kundan Kumar, who is also additional collector of Palamu, said, “We are keeping an eye on the trans-border booths by taking note of daily progress of the digitisation of electoral forms.”“Digitisation of the filled electoral forms is picking up as there are two more weeks to go before the deadline of July 29,” he said.Bishrampur constituency has a total of 367 polling booths, of which 158 are trans-border booths.The other constituency with trans-border booths is Daltonganj, which has 55 booths located in Garhwa district’s Bhandariya and Bargar blocks. Daltonganj has the highest number of 426 booths among Palamu’s five assembly constituencies. Officials said the 55 trans-border booths, too, are under constant watch of the district election officer.Garhwa district has so far achieved 98.93% collection of enumeration forms, and most of them have been digitised, deputy commissioner and district election officer Pashupati Nath Mishra said. “Enumeration works will be completed within the deadline so that the final electoral roll can be published on Aug 5. So far 8,52,841 enumeration forms of the total 8,62,092 have been distributed in the two assembly constituencies of the district. While there are 4,26,661 electors registered in Garhwa assembly constituency, there are 4,35,431 voters in Bhawnathpur.”(With inputs from Q A Hadi in Garhwa)
