New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) Three out of every four Bihar electors have submitted their enumeration forms as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, taking the total coverage of the drive to 74.39 per cent, an ECI official said on Friday.

“As of 6 p.m. on Friday, 5.87 crore Enumeration Forms, which is 74.39 per cent of the total forms, have been collected in the last 17 days, since the issue of SIR instructions on June 24. Enumeration Forms can be submitted before July 25,” said the Election Commission of India (ECI) in a statement.

The official said that with 14 more days left before the last date of collection of Enumeration Forms, they expect to conduct the rest of the exercise in time.

In the second phase of SIR, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are going house-to-house to assist the electors and collect their filled Enumeration Forms, said the official statement.

Field-level functionaries, including 38 DROs, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) covering all 243 Assembly Constituencies, and 963 AEROs, are regularly supervising the progress of SIR.

Digitisation and uploading of Enumeration Forms are progressing smoothly. In line with Para 3(h) of the SIR guidelines, BLOs have successfully digitised and uploaded 3.73 crores Enumeration Forms through the BLO App/ECINet, out of the total Enumeration Forms collected by them so far, said the statement.

“Today, a new module has been implemented in ECINet for the verification of the uploaded forms by the AERO/EROs,” said the ECI.

As many as 77,895 BLOs, along with the 20,603 newly appointed BLOs and other election officials, are working tirelessly to complete the exercise in time.

Over 4 lakh volunteers are also supporting the elderly, the disabled, sick and vulnerable populations, along with the 1.56-lakh proactive force of Booth Level Agents (BLAs) who have been appointed by all recognised political parties, resulting in the collection of 74.39 per cent enumeration forms.

Earlier, the Supreme Court asked the ECI to consider “in the interest of justice” if documents such as Aadhaar, Voter ID and Ration Cards could be accepted for the purpose of verification of voters during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in poll-bound Bihar.

A Bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi was dealing with a batch of petitions claiming that if the June 26 decision of the poll body directing SIR is not set aside, it can “arbitrarily” and “without due process” disenfranchise lakhs of voters from electing their representatives, and disrupt free and fair elections and democracy.

Noting that the draft revised rolls will be published in August, the Supreme Court listed the matter for further hearing on July 28 before a regular Bench.

–IANS

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