Tirupati: Meticulous planning crucial in efficient conduct of polls

Tirupati : New district Collector and district election officer (DEO) Pravin Kumar assumed charge at the Collectorate in Tirupati at the midnight of Thursday. He immediately held an extensive meeting with nodal officers, EROs, AEROs and other election officials on Friday and gave directions to them.

He told them to work with meticulous planning towards efficient conduct of polls duly understanding their duties. All the officers should follow EC guidelines in toto from time to time and daily and weekly reports should be maintained properly and send to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO). They should set the timelines and act accordingly with utmost caution which will help in the smooth conduct of polls. Saying that he had the experience of working in four elections, the DEO said the key aspect is following the ECI guidelines at every stage of the election process. The nodal officers for manpower, training, material, transport, cyber security, SVEEP, law and order, EVMs, model code of conduct, expenditure, ballot papers, postal ballot, media, communication plan, electoral rolls, voter helpline and others should work in coordination and follow the election handbook.

SVEEP activities should be taken up extensively with the goal of increasing the poll percentage than that of 2019 elections. EROs were advised to ensure basic infrastructure facilities such as ramps, drinking water, electricity, toilets etc., at every polling station under their jurisdiction. The DEO also told the EROs to make arrangements in their offices to monitor the newspapers, electronic media and social media during the elections period.

Joint Collector HM Dhyana Chandra, DRO Penchala Kishore, Tirupati ERO and Corporation Commissioner Aditi Singh, RDO and Chandragiri RDO Nishanth Reddy and others attended the meeting while other EROs and officers took part online from their offices.