A little care in Panchayat election

Conducting Panchayat election is a herculean task for the block level administration. Sleepless nights and moment-to-moment abruptly arising challenges can easily make the block-level officials breathless and worn-out. However, they can improve their efficiency during registration of polling officers, disbursing of polling materials, dispatching of polling parties to their concerned booths and during reception by following some simple steps. The steps are given below as a way of suggestion.

1. The appointment letter forwarded to the polling officers of a particular party should mention the mobile phone numbers of the polling officers below their names. It will help the party members to form the group earlier without any unnecessary wait or search.

2. At reception or disbursing counters many officers often break the queue (as it is inherent in Indians)   and create uninvited confusion. So, issuing stringent instructions for maintaining queue and constructing barricade to go in queues can help the process.

4. A tanker containing safe drinking water should be deployed by the administration at the hub for the party members.

5. Care should be taken to regulate the movement of the parties by a time-bound movement chart. For example at the time of registration the presiding officer should be handed an information sheet which would mention the Name and Mobile No of sector officer, Vehicle Number and its departure time, Venue of polling (Ward No, Booth No, Constituency No or Zone, etc), Polling material checklist.

6. If more than one party is attached to a single vehicle, then the Presiding officers should be provided the contact numbers of their companion presiding officers in that information sheet. So easily the parties can have co-ordination as regard to departure after conducting the election.

7. It is commonly seen that the counters are unable to dispense specific labeled packets as per requirements. As a result the P.Os are requested to strike out the printed label and then super scribe the packets in handwriting as per requirement. This extra work can be reduced if the administration gives a little attention to disburse right type of packets in required numbers to the polling parties.

8. During the polling the officers deployed for observation collect the information regarding hour-wise polling of male and female voters. In this connection an additional sheet bearing ascending numerical presentation in two sections-one for males and another one for females- can be handed to the P.O. at the time of disbursement of polling material.

9. Last but not the least, during election time the administration should treat the Polling officers with a real touch of humanity so as to make the national task really enjoyable and memorable.