New Delhi, March 08 2009: Even though election authority here has announced use of photo identity cards, images of only 77.39 percent of the total 17,27,240 electors captured so far.

In the meantime, the authority has worked out the required civil polling personnel for the ensuing elections to the two Lok Sabha seat at 13,200 including 20 percent reserved personnel in the ensuing Lok Sabha election which would be witness in two phases on April 16 and 20. However the requirement of central paramilitary forces is yet to be chalked, official source said today.

Even though the Election Commission of India on last Thursday said that 82 percent electors would use photo identity cards to cast their votes in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls and state election authority here announces use of photo identity cards in the ensuing in Manipur, the net percentage of photo coverage works out only at 77.39% at the latest.

Manipur has a total of 17,27,240 electors as per the special summary revision-2009 which was carried out with January 1, 2009 as qualifying date and out of this total electors images of 13,36,687 electors have been captured and their photographs have been incorporated in the Final Photo Electronic Rolls.

The net percentage of photo coverage works out at 77.39% in the whole state with 80.87 percent in valley districts and 72.17% in hill districts, the source said.

District-wise reports of the valley districts available with the state election department showed that out of 291812 electors in Imphal east, images of 227240 (77.87%) electors have been captured while out of 322550 electors in Imphal west, 254028 (78.76) have been captured.

Bishnupur district has 157441 of which images of 132327 (84.05%) and 224705 (84.85%) out of 264832 electors in Thoubal district have been captured.

With captured of 66697 (85.37%) images of the electors in Tamenglong district, the district recorded highest among the five district of the state.

The district has a total of 78126 electors while with the capturing of only 59.41 and 59.74 percents respectively Ukhrul and Charachandpur districts has lowest Electoral Photo Roll coverage.

In Ukhrul district out of 100994 electors, images of only 60002 has so fare captured and out of 175696 electors in Churachandpur district, only 104960 have covered by the programme.

Images of a total of 199093 (81.47%) out of 244383 electors in Senapati district have been captured while in Chandel district 67635 (73.99%) electors out of 91406 captured, the report said.

The total number of polling stations across the state has been increased from 2061 to 2193.A total of 132 numbers of polling stations has been increased after a rationalization exercise carried out by the state authority with the approval of the ECI.

Out of the existing polling stations, 970 are within the Inner Manipur Parliamentary Constituency, and the rest 1223 are within the Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency (ST).

Of the total 2193 polling stations, 355 are in the Imphal east, 369 are in Imphal west, 297 are in Bishnupur, 191 are in Thoubal district, 122 are in Chandel, 164 are in Ukhrul, 318 are Senapati, 130 are in Tamenglong district and 247 are Churachandpur district.

For all the polling 2193 polling stations, the requirement of civil polling personnel are tentatively worked out as about 13,200 including 20 percent reserved polling personnel, the source said.

The election authority here is yet to chalk out the requirement of Central security personnel for the ensuing election, official said that the requirement can be chalked out only after consultation with the representatives of state home department.

Police department and all concerned have been asked to access the same based on various aspect such as the law and order problems, requirement and availability of state resources, security requirement for the contesting candidates, it said.

During the last State Assembly Election-2007, a total of 216 companies of CPMF (from BSF and CRFP) including 150 companies from outside the state had been provided by the Union ministry of home affairs to the state government for deployment the force as per scale and requirement as accessed by the election authorities for both pre-poll and poll-related duties.

However, only 79 companies of CPMF including 49 companies of CRPF from within the state and 30 companies (15 companies each of CRPF and BSF from outside the state) were utilized during the last Lok Sabha (14th) election.

The number of force was in addition to 53 companies of armed personnel (State police personnel) available in the state.

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