Govt depts sent circular seeking manpower availability for poll duty

New Delhi: As Delhi gears up for assembly elections, circulars have been issued to all departments under the city government directing them to nominate employees

New Delhi: As Delhi gears up for assembly elections, circulars have been issued to all departments under the city government directing them to nominate employees for poll duty, senior government officials said Saturday.

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Assembly elections are likely to be slated in the national capital in early 2020. The term of the current Delhi assembly ends on February 22, 2020.

The circulars, which were issued across departments between November 1 and 8, directs department heads to upload details of available manpower that can be deployed on election duty, senior government officials said.

They further said the details have to be uploaded on a web application and the database of the application is maintained by the chief election officer in Delhi.

A similar process was carried out before the Lok Sabha elections and it had witnessed some technical hurdles, senior officials said.

“After the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, a close scrutiny of manpower data, as provided by various departments, was carried out and it had emerged that many nodal officers had failed to comply with the requisite process of uploading details. Some departments even did not disclose details about their subsidiaries. This time, all complaints of non-adherence will directly be referred to the office of the chief election officer of Delhi,” a senior government official said.

According to officials in the chief election office, around 75,000 officials will be needed for the assembly polls. They will be roped in from government departments and civic agencies. Eventually, several of them will also be shortlisted for duty in around 13,800 polling booths across the city and for counting duty. The officials will also be engaged in a range of tasks that include voter surveys and rolls revision, they said.