PANJIM: To ensure that no household or a voter is left out from the ward, the State Election Commission (SEC) for the very first time introduced web-based system to undertake the ward delimitation process across all 186 village panchayats, elections for which are likely to be held in June, this year.
The new body in these 186 panchayats will be elected before June 19.
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Ahead of the panchayat elections, the SEC has kept open the draft delimitation proposals for public opinion from Thursday till March 2 for submission of their suggestions, modifications and corrections on panchayat wards.
Addressing the media persons, Election Commissioner W V Ramanamurthy said that the village panchayat wards are constituted considering the geographical contiguity and natural boundaries and number of voters.
He said that considering all this aspect, Netravali has the smallest ward with 130 voters, while Sancolda has largest ward of 1,000 voters.
He said that a distance of two kilometres between polling booth and ward is also considered while undertaking delimitation.
“In order to complete the delimitation task in error free and logical manner, the Commission for the first time has rolled out the customised web-based software, wherein each of the voters along with its house number is placed in his respective ward,” the Commissioner said.
“Last time we had got some complaints that some houses are in this ward and some went to other ward…also the family members from the same house were divided within two wards. Taking into consideration, we decided to adopt web-based system for delimitation so that these discrepancies are set aside,” Ramanamurthy said.
He also said that for the first time, the SEC considered the part and section of the Goa Legislative Assembly electoral roll published on January 5 and supplement published on January 28.
“We will also consider the new electoral roll that will be published in April and accordingly final voter list will be made public a week before the panchayat elections schedule,” he said.
The Electoral Registrar Officers (EROs) will prepare the final delimitation proposals after considering the suggestions or modifications or corrections of the public and submit the same to the Commission through the respective District Collectors on or before March 8.
“We will then prepare the final proposal and submit it to the government for their comment before notifying it,” the Commissioner informed.
