NEW DELHI: Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Wednesday unveiled a first-of-its-kind EC initiative to train over 1 lakh booth level officers (BLOs) — responsible for carrying out house-to-house verification for updation of the electoral roll — from across the country in all aspects of voter enrolment including the statutory framework and laid down procedures.
The training programme — which shall, over the next few years and in batches, train 1 BLO per 10 polling stations at the International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIDEM) here — comes amid questions being raised by various political parties on purity of the electoral roll. While the Congress has alleged erroneous additions and deletions in Maharashtra rolls, Trinamool Congress had flagged the issue of duplication in elector photo identity card (EPIC) numbers.
In the first batch that started the two-day, residential training on Wednesday, 109 BLOs from Bihar, West Bengal and Assam are participating along with 24 electoral registration officers (EROs) and 13 district election officers (DEOs) from Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. All these states are due for assembly polls in the next one year.
The BLOs, once trained, will form a corps of assembly-level master trainers to strengthen the countrywide BLO network.
Inaugurating the training programme, CEC Kumar acknowledged the critical role of the EROs and BLOs in error-free updation of electoral rolls. He underlined that the state govts should nominate officers at the level of sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) or equivalent as ERO, who must then appoint BLOs after giving due consideration to seniority and their being ordinary resident of the polling station under their charge.
Kumar, flanked by election commissioner Vivek Joshi, asked BLOs to follow all rules and procedures during roll updation and be courteous in their interactions with the electors during house-to-house verification. He also warned of strict action on complaints against EROs and BLOs.
“The training is planned to familiarise the BLOs with their roles and responsibilities and to equip them with requirements of filling relevant forms for an error free updation of electoral rolls. They will be familiarised with IT applications designed to support their work,” EC said in a statement.
BLOs are state govt officials and are appointed by EROs with the approval of DEOs.
