Poll preparations on smoothly : CEO
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, October 25 2016: Preparation for the upcoming 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly election 2017 is going on smoothly and methods through new softwares will be used to address public grievances, stated Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Vivek Kumar Dewangan while addressing mediapersons in a press conference held at Conference Hall, Secretariat South Block.

The CEO stated that steps to improve facilitation of various stakeholders like electors, political parties and candidates to ensure efficient and effective monitoring of election processes and redressal of public grievances will be taken up by using three different softwares.

He added that new softwares like Samadhan, Suvidha and Shugam will be used to ensure that the grievances and problems of all stakeholders are well received.

Every channel available including telephone (1950), email, social-media and online will be used.

Poll preparations on smoothly : CEO

Further he explained that Samadhan software is a platform for online registration of any complaint, grievance, concern and suggestion.

The software will direct the officers concerned to enquire into the complaints within a stipulated time and close the case with a feedback to the complainant.

If the time limit is breached, there is a provision for automatic transfer of the grievance to higher authority concerned which includes the Election Commission of India, he added.

Suvidha is where politicians and political parties can put forward their complaints and grievances to the CEO office, he said.

To facilitate proper use of the software, a training session will also be conducted on November 5 for the political parties, Vivek said.

Shugam is a web-based application for proper and transparent management of vehicles requisitioned from private owners during the election.

The CEO further assured that those vehicles requisitioned for the election will be paid in advance and remaining balance will be paid through e-transaction after completion of the election processes.

To facilitate transparent and efficient cash transfer, details of vehicle owners and driver including their bank account numbers will be collected, he said.

The CEO also appealed to all the people to exercise their voting rights in the upcoming election and added that the CEO office will ensure all forms of inconvenience and issue faced in earlier elections are not repeated.

As questions of authenticity of EVM machines and possibility of tampering have been put forward by the political parties, Additional Chief Electoral Officer RK Dinesh said the CEO office will conduct mock election process in 60 higher secondary schools, 80 colleges and 60 voter registration and facilitation centres in all districts.

He further said that special attention is given to prevent duplication of voters in both valley and hill districts.

Hearing of the claims and objections of all the districts will be conducted from October 21 to November 18 by the Electoral Registration Officer concerned or District Election Officer after which the results will be uploaded on the website.

Assistant CEO H Modak further said that the three softwares which the CEO Manipur is planning to use in the upcoming 2017 election will be made available as mobile applications for android and I-phone users.

The press conference was also attended by officials of the Chief Electoral Officer, Manipur.