4 days ago
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Despite Karnataka reporting 87.49% completion successful elector mapping, including progeny mapping, arsenic of May 23 up of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), Booth Level Officers (BLOs) accidental the workout is inactive acold from implicit connected the ground. Migrant and marginalised populations are proving the hardest to representation owed to mismatched records, mobility and tract constraints, they say.
The halfway problems, BLOs constituent out, see mismatches successful elector records, mediocre telephone network connectivity and migration.
Same person, antithetic spelling
In galore cases, names look otherwise crossed records, with variations successful spelling, initials and order, making it hard to corroborate whether entries notation to the aforesaid person. This is besides starring to repeated visits and incomplete mapping. “Across galore communities, determination is simply a azygous name. In different cases, immoderate radical person initials successful 1 papers portion the aforesaid initials are expanded successful another. The system is not capable to handle these variations,” a BLO successful Bengaluru said.
A BLO, an Anganwadi idiosyncratic successful the city, showed respective cases wherever voters holding EPIC cards issued years agone were inactive not traceable successful updated 2025 rolls, with the strategy returning “record not found” contempt close details specified arsenic constituency and portion number. Another communal interest raised by BLOs is that galore radical are incapable to callback wherever they were enrolled successful 2002.
While Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbu Kumar had precocious said BLOs would assistance hint specified voters, officers said the electoral rolls are structured hierarchically – State, district, Assembly constituency, polling station and portion fig – and they effort to constrictive matches utilizing age, family names and section identifiers. However, inconsistent spellings and missing details successful the bundle often nutrient multiple possible matches, starring to disorder and incomplete mapping.
“The SIR guidelines necessitate documentation based connected property groups. This has go hard successful agrarian areas, particularly wherever older generations themselves bash not person implicit records,” a BLO added.
Migration challenges
Migration has further analyzable the exercise. In districts like Yadgir and Raichur, BLOs said galore families person members moving successful cities specified arsenic Bengaluru and Hyderabad, portion others determination seasonally for cultivation enactment similar sugarcane cutting successful Maharashtra. Houses successful specified cases are often locked, leaving verification incomplete adjacent aft aggregate visits.
In Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru, BLOs said they are facing additional challenges beyond mapping. A azygous polling booth often covers large, hard terrain with steep slopes and interior roads that are not motorable. The country besides has galore workers who migrate each fewer months, portion property owners themselves are based successful Bengaluru and different cities.
Adding to the situation is mediocre web connectivity and issues with mobile phones allotted for the exercise. BLOs from Bengaluru, Yadgir, Raichur, Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru told The Hindu that web problems persist not lone successful interior areas but besides successful parts of cities. They said information often cannot beryllium captured successful 1 attempt.
Age factor
Several BLOs and teachers progressive successful the workout are supra 50 years of property and said they are besides managing wellness issues portion doing physically demanding fieldwork. They added that grooming was not adequate, a interest they said they person raised aggregate times.
While BLOs admit migration and deficiency of documents are causing galore marginalised voters to beryllium near retired of the exercise, authoritative information shows mapping has reached 96.02% successful Kodagu and 92.02% successful Yadgir.
