Jalandhar: Gearing up for the final preparations of the Shahkot by-poll slated to be held on May 28, the district administration would start the final process of preparations of the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) from tomorrow (May 18).
A decision to this effect was taken in a meeting chaired by the Election Observer Ravi Kant Jain and Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma here at the district administrative complex to review the arrangements for the preparations.
Presiding over the meeting both the officers said that the final randomization of 350 Controlling Units, 360 Ballot Units and 285 VVPATs has already been done in the presence of representatives and now these machines would be prepared for the by-poll. They said that the engineers of Bharat Electrical Limited (BEL) who have been entrusted this job by the Election Commission have already arrived in the district. They said that these engineers would start their work soon to equip these machines with the relevant data regarding the by-election.
The Officers said that these engineers would ensure the loading of symbols in the VVPAT machines besides fixing the ballot papers in the EVM machines to be used for the polls. They said that these machines would be processed in their presence adding that 21 teams led by the Supervisors have been constituted to assist the Engineers for this purpose. They said that these EVMs and VVPATs would be installed at 236 polling booths during the by-poll and a sizeable reserve of EVMs and VVPAT machines would be kept at the disposal of the officers during the by-poll so that they could be replaced whenever any snag occurs in the machines on polling day. Similarly some machines would also be kept for imparting training to the poll staff, they added.