Now, get voter ID with the click of your mouse

You don’t have to stand in long queues or visit dusty government offices for a voter I-card; you can now get it with a few clicks of the mouse.

Updated on: Apr 23, 2013, 01:25:08 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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You don’t have to stand in long queues or visit dusty government offices for a voter I-card; you can now get it with a few clicks of the mouse.

The Election Commission of India has started online registration of voters. What’s more you can even change your demographic details online.

All it takes is just ten minutes on internet to fill a form and a home visit by an election commission representative to verify the details submitted for registration.

Once this is done, you would receive your voter’s identity card at your home within a short-time.

It is the only system in India where one can get an identity card without visiting a government office. “In the normal course a citizen will not be required to visit a government office. Only if someone objects to a person’s claim for becoming a voter, he or she will have to visit the office of electoral officer,” said Deputy Election Commissioner Alok Shukla.

Getting the latest and modern identity version --- unique identification or Aadhaar number --- requires at least one visit to an enrolling center. Unlike Aadhaar, the EC’s identity version does not require biometric details and the online facility provides for uploading one’s photograph and all relevant documents required for a voter’s identity card.

To make use of the commission’s exclusive voter enrollment portal ---eci-citizenservices.nic.in --- one has to register with his or her mobile number, which is also login name and password for tracking one’s application. “Once the application related to electoral roll is accepted one receives a call for home verification and thereafter the voter identity card is mailed to the applicant,” a senior commission official said.

The commission had tasted success with the online system with around 40 % of new voters in Kerala and about 30% in Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka having applied through the online system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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