GHMC to geo-tag sensitive polling stations

Hyderabad, Nov 08: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation commissioner M. Dana Kishore on Tuesday held a review meeting with police officials to further identify and geo-tag sensitive polling stations to make elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of the upcoming election.

With regard to the 15 Assembly constituencies, counting centre and strongroom arrangements are being made as per the directions of the CEO.

Discussions are also being held with regard to security, police initiatives etc. Points have been discussed and security planning talks have been held about critical polling stations, all of which entails proper coordination among returning officers.

Mr Kishore said that around 27,000 staff would be needed for polling purposes. He said orders were being served for deploying staff for election work. On November14 and 15, the first training programme will be conducted for polling officers, assistant polling officers.

He further said that the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities were also being taken on a warfooting.

"To increase the polling percentage, pamphlets are being planned to be distributed to all the school students to create awareness about the polling and the campaign will involve parents. NGOs, RWAs, SHGs etc., are also being involved. A meeting will be conducted on November 8 to have a proper interaction with them," he said.

The DEO said that the first randomisation would be taken up on November 12 and November 13 at Victory Play Ground where the EVMs and VVPATs have already been provided and will be sent to the ROs concerned with all police security arrangements.

“Nominations will start from November 12 for which training of ROs is already over. All the officers of various govern-ment agencies are coordinating well and works are being done systematically. So far, Rs 9 crore have been seized by the flying squad teams,” the DEO added.

Hyderabad Police commissioner Anjani Kumar said that for every Assembly constituency, one assistant commissioner of police, DCPs, additional CPs (law & order) would be assigned to maintain law and order.

All the distribution, reception counters have been inspected. Three companies of Para Military Forces have been deployed and in another 10 days, 25 more companies are likely to join election work.