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Teams on alert in flood- prone areas: Collector
PUNE Heavy rainfall forecast for the next four days has left the Pune district administration and the police department to roll up their sleeves and take precautionary
PUNE Heavy rainfall forecast for the next four days has left the Pune district administration and the police department to roll up their sleeves and take precautionary measures for state assembly election to be held on Monday.
To address flood and extreme weather conditions on the voting day, the district administration has decided to set up 283 temporary polling stations. “All the temporary polling stations were tested for heavy rainfall conditions and are ready to function now,” said Naval Kishore Ram, district collector.
“Considering heavy rainfall prediction, we have kept our team ready on alert mode specifically in flood-prone areas (low-lying areas) like Indapur, Baramati, Maval and Bhor and have instructed zilla parishad chief executive officer (CEO) to take necessary precautions accordingly,” Ram said.
He said on Sunday the administration has decided to start dispatch of electronic voting machines (EVM) and complete the task by 2 pm. “According to our plan, all machines should reach their respective destinations by 5 pm,” Ram said.
Elaborating on election preparedness, the district collector informed that they had repaired almost 50 roads leading to polling stations in the district. To increase voter turnout, almost all polling stations have been shifted to the first floor this time. To help the elderly and disabled, the administration has made available 3,034 wheelchairs in the district. To improve women voter turnout, administration has installed 21 Sakhi Mahila polling stations in the district. Along with that, 7,915 help desk will be available in the district to help voters.
District collector assured that this time there will not be any mess in missing names in the voter list, because the district collectorate has deleted only 905 names after scrutiny.
Recently, Pune district experienced a massive flood in which most of the people lost their belongings, including voter card. To help such people, the district administration has distributed 48,000 EPIC cards in flood-affected areas in the district.
