Training on EVMs at South district

NAMCHI, 30 Mar [IPR]: The District Election Office South imparted the second round of training on the election procedure and familiarization to Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) for the Presiding Officers, and Polling 1 & Polling 2 Officers at the Community Hall, Namchi today.
The training was addressed by the Returning Officer cum District Collector, Prabhakar Verma. Underlining the first phase of training, Mr. Verma highlighted the importance of presiding officers and their team for the upcoming elections. “Polls this year will commence from 7 am to 5 pm unlike the previous elections; errors like sealing of EVM and inconsistency in the polling procedure should be avoided at all costs“, he said. The third and final round of the training will be conducted on 07, 08 and 09 April he informed. The RO South also informed that show cause notice will be issued to those officials who were absent in the training and to those as well who left the training midway without submitting an undertaking.
The Returning Officer added that complaints are coming from the public that they are being intimidated by certain political parties and if this is found to be true then strict action will be taken against the responsible party/person by the concerned officials. He has also asked the public to contact their respective sector magistrates or call the toll free number to report their complaints provided in the local news papers in the case of similar matters.
District Planning Officer (South), Yangchen Tamang imparted training on EVM operations and gave a complete demonstration of the EVM to the trainees. ADC (Dev) Namchi, Benu Gurung briefed the Polling Officers about the polling materials, postal ballots, requisite statutory and non statutory forms, marked copy of electoral roll with ASD (Absent, Shifted and Deleted) ECI orders and the checklist that needs to be maintained in order to ensure systematic elections.
The training program was also attended by the General Observer Dr R Selvaraj. Deputy Director LRDM, DK Rai and District Project Officer, Pempa Sherpa were present in the program as the resource persons.
Deputy Secretary Bishal Mukhia informed that the voter slips were distributed today by the Booth Level Officers in all the respective polling booths of South District.