Bhubaneswar: The Odisha State Election Commission (SEC) initiated the electoral process Friday for the panchayat polls scheduled to be held early next year, informed an officials.
According to a source, the SEC has written a letter in this regard to district collectors and requested the officials concerned to submit their respective inventories of available ballot boxes, latest by July 26.
“The Commission is in protracted correspondence with districts to ascertain the availability of ballot boxes, both in good as well as in repairable condition,” the SEC letter said.
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The SEC also pulled up the administration in all the districts, for submitting erroneous figures regarding the availability of ballot boxes. It said that the figures have been submitted in a wrong manner and that the administration should furnish correct information.
“It is now proposed to have central counting at block headquarters instead of counting at booth level in the next panchayat elections 2022, for which the requirement of ballot boxes would be total number of booths in the district. Therefore there will be a substantial increase in the number of ballot boxes that will be used in these elections,” the letter stated.
Notably, the SEC has directed the 30 district collectors to ensure inventory of ballot boxes available with them, the lists of which are to be prepared by the district-level officials, either by ADMs or project directors of DRDA. The actual inventory figures are to be submitted to the Commission latest by July 26.
PNN