BANDIPORA: The District Election Officer (DEO) Bandipora, Shakeel ul Rehman Rather today chaired a meeting of Officers at Mini Secretariat, here to assess the preparedness for the Lok Sabha Elections- 2024.

On the occasion, the DEO reviewed the preparations made by Election Nodal Officers regarding the responsibilities assigned to them.

The Nodal officers briefed the DEO about the preparations and steps initiated for the smooth conduct of elections and implementation of various instructions of previous meetings.

The meeting discussed threadbare various aspects of election, including arrangements at special polling stations, unique polling stations, model polling stations, plantation at polling stations, poll day monitoring formats, postal voting counter etc.

Issues related to status of distribution of EPICs, provisions made in polling stations, availability of material at all the three assembly segments viz. 14-Sonawari, 15-Bandipora, 16-Gurez.

Besides, SVEEP, activities being carried out to increase voter turnout, training of manpower, deployment of security forces, election expenditure, implementation of MCC, working of MCMC, Working of Joint Election Control Room of Civil Administration and police were also threadbare discussed in the meeting.

While reviewing the status of the transport plan, the Nodal Officer concerned apprised the DEO that the transport plan for poll day has been framed and submitted to the concerned.

Nodal Officer postal ballots informed the meeting that all the necessary measures for home voting, visiting teams for home voting, and service voters  are in place.

While reviewing the availability of material, Nodal Officer material management apprised the chair that all necessary election related material have been provided to AROs of three Assembly Segments.

Speaking on the occasion, the DEO stressed the need for enhancing  awareness  under SVEEP to educate people about the importance of exercising their franchise.

He asked Nodal Officer SVEEP to identify areas with low voter turnout and focus SVEEP activities in those areas.

He directed the SVEEP cell to implement strategies in a coordinated and targeted manner in order to scale up SVEEP activities for promoting voter education, awareness and participation.

The meeting was attended by ADDC Mohd Ashraf Bhat, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Nodal Officer MCC) Umar Shafi Pandit, DyDEO Mohammad Rafeeq Bhat, Assistant Commissioner Revenue (ARO Bandipora), Assistant Commissioner Development (Nodal Officer EVM), SDM Gurez (ARO Gurez) SDM Sumbal (ARO Sonawari), DTO (Nodal Officer Expenditure) DIO (Nodal Officer MCMC), Executive Engineers and other concerned.