Booth Level Officers (BLOs) conduct a door to door special intensive revision of electoral rolls and a voter enumeration drive at Bhim Enclave, Vikas Nagar in west Delhi.
| Photo Credit: Hindu file
With a week remaining for the door-to-door enumeration phase of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, only 57.54% of enumeration forms have been digitised, even though 99.91% have been distributed, according to data released by the office of Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Kumar on Friday.Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) said they were struggling to meet deadlines amid a mounting workload while a citizens’ collective assisting voters alleged that many electors had not received forms despite official claims of near-complete distribution. The door-to-door verification phase, initially scheduled to end on July 29, was extended till August 8. The draft rolls will be published on August 17.Inadequate clarityA BLO posted in north Delhi said officials were under pressure to achieve “unrealistic” daily targets. “We are being told to get 60-70 forms completed every day. How can we ensure that every form is verified and correct in that time? Many people still do not have their forms filled. We have to help them complete those. Migrant families take much longer because addresses and records have to be verified. At the same time, we have to finish door-to-door visits,” he said. He added that the workload had begun affecting his health. “I have been taking medicines for stress for the past week on my doctor’s advice. I was experiencing an increased heartbeat and pain in my arms.”Another BLO said officials were grappling with anomalies in voter records without adequate clarity on how to resolve them. “If it is a simple name mismatch, we know how to deal with it. But there are cases where a voter is linked to someone else in another State or where there are other errors. Those records cannot simply be undone, so we end up searching for another family member to verify details.”Letter to ECVoter Adhikar Manch, a citizens’ collective working on electoral rights in the Delhi-National Capital Region and assisting voters during the SIR process, has written to the Election Commission (EC) and the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer seeking clarity on issues being faced by electors.Maansi Verma, a member of the collective, said many voters claimed they had never received enumeration forms. “Several people have approached us saying they have never seen their BLO.”In its letter, the collective stated that the process assumed every elector was digitally literate. “Enumeration forms are being signed or thumb-marked without being read to the elector, while errors in names, age and relationships are often discovered after submission,” it stated. Published - August 01, 2026 12:48 am IST
