170 newly registered voters download digital IDs

Only 170 of 11,551 newly registered voters from the district downloaded their e-EPIC (electoral photo identity card) on Saturday, when an application for the same was launched across the country

Only 170 of 11,551 newly registered voters from the district downloaded their e-EPIC (electoral photo identity card) on Saturday, when an application for the same was launched across the country.

Officials said that 2,047 people from Pataudi, 3,932 from Badshahpur, 2,956 from Gurugram and 2,619 from Sohna assembly constituencies were registered under the special summary revision, 2021, and their mobile numbers linked by the election commission to test the application. (HT Archive)

Officials said that 2,047 people from Pataudi, 3,932 from Badshahpur, 2,956 from Gurugram and 2,619 from Sohna assembly constituencies were registered under the special summary revision, 2021, and their mobile numbers linked by the election commission to test the application.

“About 30,000 new voters are added to the district from January onwards. Of these, about 11,551 registered their mobile number to access the digital voter ID card. On Saturday, under the testing phase of e-EPIC for an hour between 11am -12 noon, only 170 voters downloaded their digital cards. Across the country, almost 29 lakh (2.9 million) voters had to test the application,” said Rajendra Huda, district election officer.

The e-EPIC was launched on January 25 this year as an alternative and faster mode of obtaining the voter ID in a digital format. Only new electors registered during the special summary revision of 2021 are eligible to get digital IDs. All new registrations with mobile numbers get SMS for downloading e-EPIC. They can download the same based on one-time pin (OTP) authentication.

According to a statement issued by the district administration on Saturday, the Election Commission of India (ECI) conducted the load testing of the e-EPIC server by allowing 2.9 million newly registered voters to download the application.

Currently, in Gurugram there are about 1,252,000 voters, but the service is not applicable for everyone.

According to Huda, the service will expand to include all general voters in the next couple of months. “The election commission is yet to open the service for all voters across the country. Since the load on the server will increase, it is being opened in a stepwise manner to avoid any hassle. Currently, only those who were registered from January 25 to 31 are included,” said Huda.