Dharam Vir suggests GPRs fitted vehicles for election duties

By Haryananewswire

CHANDIGARH, AUGUST 12

 State Election Commissioner, Haryana Mr. Dharam Vir today suggested that every vehicle of the officers managing elections should be enabled with Global Positioning System (GPS) for a better and more effective management of election process.  He said that as GPS-installed vehicles would enable the administration to control any situation in the shortest possible time during elections.

Mr. Dharam Vir was addressing a workshop of Deputy Commissioners and officer of National Informatics Centre (NIC) on application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS) in election process. The Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Shrikant Walgad, Mr. Nitin Yadav, Director, Panchyats, and Deputy Commissioner of Ambala, Gurgaon, Hisar and Panipat were also present in the workshop.   

Mr. Dharam Vir congratulated and lauded the Chief Electoral Officer, all Deputy Commissioners and entire team of NIC for extending full support during general elections of seven Municipal Corporations. The entire election process had been successful and the elections were conducted in a free, fair and peaceful manner, he added.

He said that the extensive use of ICT and ITeS was one of the main reasons for the success. He said that Haryana has been trendsetter in holding fair elections as no untoward incident occurred during the entire process.

He also thanked the entire team of NIC for developing software and providing all assistance in its implementation. He said that extensive use of ICT and ITeS helped in the conduct elections in a transparent manner besides making the information available to the administration and general public over internet. He said that the ICT can be used on much larger scale which would make the elections more efficient and people friendly. 

            Mr. Dharam Vir said that in recently held Municipal Corporation election, a total of 1626 polling booths were set up on seven Municipal Corporations. As many as 11,79,577 votes were polled out a total of 17,09,427 voters. With the development of SMS based e-dashboard, a live picture of poll status was available on internet which proved to be very helpful for general public. A total of 20,167 SMS were transacted to update the voting statistics at central database and over 8.62 lakh website hits were received on voting day. Similarly, over 20.40 lakh hits were received on counting day.

            He urged the participants for continued cooperation and said that entire team would take more challenges in usage of ICT in the election process.

Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Shrikant Walgad showed keen interest in implementation of the software and new ideas on the use of ICT and ITeS in the state during ensuing Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

            The Deputy Commissioners concerned and officers of the NIC shared their experiences of election process from district administration point of view and presented their views on introduction of ICT and ITeS in other areas of the election process. Mr Ghanshyam Bansal, NIC_Haryana Director also  assured that the software would be modified keeping the suggestions given in today’s workshop.

It was informed  that the software provided complete information, on real time basis, about the movement of polling parties, establishing polling station, start of polling and progress of votes polled, status of law and order at polling station and close of poll. The percentage of votes polled was also available and updated regularly on the internet for the public. On the day of counting, status of all votes counted was updated on a regular interval and status was available on the internet for public.

It was suggested that based on the experience gained in the corporations elections, comprehensive software should be developed to manage all aspects of elections right from the stage preparation of votes to counting of votes and announcement of results.