ES Reporter 

 

ITANAGAR, Aug 4:   Chief Electoral Officer, Arunachal Pradesh, Padmini Singla(IAS) today informed that provision has been made to link Aadhar number with  Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) by the Election Commission of India .

Speaking to the reporters here at Nirvachan Bhawan on Thursday, Singla informed that a new  Form  6B has been introduced for submission of Aaadhar number by an existing elector. The form will be made available on ECU websites like ERONET, GARUDA, NVSP,VHA etc.

 When asked about whether the seeding of Aadhaar with EPIC is mandatory, the CEO stated that as of now the authority can only appeal to the voters to link their Aadhar. The objective of linking Aadhar with EPIC   is to establish the identity of electors and authentication of entries in the electoral roll as well as to identify of the registration of the same person in more than one constituency.

 The Form 6B can be submitted in both online and offline and Nirvachan Bhawan will soon launch the campaign for the same in different parts of the state.

Election Commission is now providing more opportunities for the youth to become part of voters list.So, to  enroll, they need not wait for 1st January as  the qualifying date  but they can apply for enrollment in  advance, Singla said.

17+-year-olds can now apply in advance for having their names enrolled in the voter's list and they don't necessarily have to await the pre-requisite criterion of attaining 18 years of age on 1st January of a year. 

ECI has directed the CEOs/EROs/AEROs of all states to work out tech-enabled solutions so that the youth are facilitated to file their advance applications with reference to three subsequent qualifying dates i.e. 15th April, 1st July and 1st October and not just 1st January. Henceforth, the Electoral Roll will be updated every quarter and eligible youngsters can be registered in the next quarter of the year in which he/she has attained the qualifying age of 18 years, after getting registered, he/she will be issued an Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC), informed the CEO.

For the current round of annual revision of the electoral roll, 2023, any citizen attaining the age of 18 years by April 1, July 1 and October 1 of 2023 can also submit an advance application for registration as a voter from the date of draft publication of electoral roll

"In other words, the advance application can be submitted on or after 9th November 2022, the date on which draft electoral roll will be published" , added  CEO, Singla.

she also informed that the Annual Summary Revision of 2023 will be started from 4th August to 24th October 22 and the final publication will be done on 5th January 2023.