Pune: Notional house numbers assigned to households in the electoral rolls are proving to be a headache for BLOs as they cannot reach voters whose existing addresses are incomplete or inadequate, officials on the ground said.Officials fear that tracing voters with notional house numbers could become even more difficult unless the address details are simultaneously improved.“The biggest problem is finding the voter. In many cases, the address in the electoral roll is incomplete and there is no cellphone number to contact the person. We have to depend on local information and neighbours to trace them,” a BLO said.Another BLO said that even where a house number is available, it may not help identify the voter if the address lacks building names, flat numbers, lane details or other landmarks.“Several addresses have only a house number or a locality name. There are also cases where the number is wrong or incomplete. When we reach the area, it becomes difficult to know which person or household to look for. Assigning a notional number on paper will not solve the basic problem of an incomplete address,” the BLO said.In urban and semi-urban areas, multiple buildings have similar or identical numbers and residents may have shifted without updating their electoral records.BLOs said the absence of contact numbers has repeatedly compounded the problem. “There are no phone numbers against many electors. In some records, the number itself is incomplete. So even if we know that the voter is supposed to be in a particular locality, we have no way of calling and asking for directions,” another BLO said.Officials said such cases have contributed to forms remaining undistributed or uncollected during the door-to-door exercise. BLOs have to make repeated visits, seek help from neighbours or local representatives and, in some cases, spend considerable time tracing a single elector.
