Kolkata, Nov 21 (IANS) The progress of digitisation of the enumeration forms in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in West Bengal seems to be going on at a satisfactory pace, with almost 26 per cent of the digitisation work completed as of date.

According to the latest figures available from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, till 6 p.m. on Thursday, digitisation of 1.95 crore enumeration forms, which is 25.5 per cent of the total of 7,64,11,983 enumerations already distributed among the voters in the state.

The total number of electors in West Bengal, as per the electoral roll as on October 27, is 7,66,37,529, which means that 2,25,546 enumeration forms are yet to be distributed.

A CEO’s office insider said that the pace of digitisation of the enumeration forms has gained momentum after the ECI had set a daily target for the booth-level officers in the state.

Under this target, each BLO will have to upload 150 enumeration forms collected by him or her from the voters in the special app provided by the ECI to them. The daily target for each BLO had been fixed, keeping in mind the commission’s earlier target to complete the digitisation process by the end of November.

The CEO’s office insider said that the commission is taking the work of digitisation of enumeration forms very seriously and had already slapped showcause notices to as many as seven BLOs, all in Kolkata, on Thursday for their slow pace of digitisation work.

Earlier this month, the ECI slapped showcause notices on eight BLOs who have reportedly adopted the shortcut process of distributing the enumeration forms from a particular place, violating the ECI-prescribed norm of making door-to-door visits for the distribution of the forms.

Then, the CEO’s office also registered FIRs against eight booth-level agents (BLAs), all associated with the ruling Trinamool Congress, on allegations of interfering in the enumeration form distribution process and even taking possession of the forms from the BLOs and themselves distributing them.

–IANS

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