Shillong:
The office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya in collaboration with the office of the District Election Officer , East Khasi Hills district organised the state level programme for launching of linking and authentication of electoral rolls data at the conference room, Deputy Commissioner’s office on Monday.
The objective of this linkage is to establish the identity of electors and authentication of entries in electoral rolls and to identify registration of name of the same person in more than one constituency or more than once in the same constituency.
Speaking on the occasion as chief guest, Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya F R Kharkongor highlighted the major modifications in registration forms of the ECI. He also dwelt at length about the linking and authentication of electoral rolls data.
He also informed that there will be enrolment four times in a year, i.e. January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 compared to the previous which is only once every year. He added that under the initiative of the ECI, there will be more opportunities for young people to enroll themselves in the electoral roll.
Another important initiative is the simplification of forms, Form 6 will be exclusively for the registration of new voters, Form 8 is the one stand alone form which will cater to all the various changes an electorate need in the electoral roll and in Form 7 there is also a provision for attaching of  death certificate to make the process of deletion simpler, he said.
Form 6 B has also been added, it states that the newly eligible electors or previous electors are free to furnish their Aadhaar card details to the electoral registration officer so as to enable linking of the epic card and Aadhaar card. The CEO stressed that the linking of the epic card and Aadhaar is voluntary in nature. It does not force nor compel voters to furnish their Aadhaar details without their consent, the inability to furnish the Aadhaar card details will neither prevent an electors name to be enrolled neither an electors name will be deleted.
Since the polling for the assembly election will take place next year, Kharkongor urged the Deputy Commissioners to conduct extensive exercises on the low registration constituencies and polling stations and ascertain the reasons of low registration and also formulate strategies, awareness programmes and mechanism on how to bridge the gap in these low enrolment pockets.
Others who were present in the programme include Isawanda Laloo, District Election Officer, East Khasi Hills District, B Mawlong, Additional Chief Electoral Officer, Meghalaya, M S Sangma, Additional Deputy Commissioner, East Khasi Hills among others.