Kolkata, Dec 23 (IANS) Each Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) will daily handle 150 cases of hearings on claims and objections to the draft voters’ list in West Bengal from Saturday, as per the target set by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The daily target had been fixed keeping in mind the schedule of the second and third stages of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in West Bengal so that the hearing session could be concluded within a reasonable period facilitating the process of the meeting the deadline for publishing the final voters’ list on February 14 next year, sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal said.

“Initially, the Commission was thinking of setting the target for daily lists of hearings at 100. However, finally it has decided to fix that daily target at 150, so that enough reserve time is available for examinations of the decisions in those hearings before finally publishing the final voters’ list on February 14 next year,” the sources said.

Each table of hearing will have one ERO, one Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO), and one micro-observer specially appointed by the Commission to supervise the hearing sessions.

These micro-observers will either direct central government staff or staff of central public sector undertakings or public banks, all of whom will be from the Group B category. However, the Commission said that all these micro-observers will be recruited from these categories of employees who are currently posted in West Bengal.

The process of sending notices for hearings started on Monday. The booth-level officers (BLOs) will reach the doorsteps of the voters concerned and hand over two copies of the notices to them.

The voter will retain one copy, and return the other copy to the BLO after signing it. The hearing session will be in two phases. In the first phase, “unmapped voters”, not having links with the 2002 list either through “self mapping” or “progeny mapping” will be summoned for hearings.

In the second phase, cases with doubtful family tree data detected in “progeny mapping” will be summoned.

The draft voters’ list was published on December 16.

The final voters’ list will be published on February 14. Soon after that, the Election Commission of India (ECI) will announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in West Bengal scheduled next year.

–IANS

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