by Trishna Pegu Doley

Guwahati: The office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Assam is introducing automations in certain selected processes to ensure a free, fair and safe State Assembly Elections, 2021. Software applications are put to use as a part of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) process. In this regard, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are being designed and disseminated amongst the massive workforce engaged by the Election Department for swift and effective implementation of the processes and to get desirable outcome. Capacity building workshops are held at state and district levels by master trainers in full swing.

The Election Commission of India is increasingly using multiple applications to manage the robust election process. One such application is ENCORE (Enabling Communications on Real-time Environment). The Election Department, Assam is utilizing this one-stop app for smooth conduct of the upcoming election. From announcement of elections to the counting till dissemination of result, the app features all. All data related to candidate nomination, scrutiny, affidavit, permission, voter turnout, counting, results website and results trend in TV and expenditure monitoring is added as feeds into the portal which can be accessed by all the officials/officers engaged in the process. To ease the system of filing nominations and details of permission required, SUVIDHA app is developed for the upcoming election as well.

This app allows the contesting candidates to view the status of their nominations and permission filed. Another app is cVigil that directly involve the voters in the electoral process by enabling them to report violations of Model Code of Conduct and Expenditure by allowing live photo/video with auto-location capture. And the citizen is informed about the status within 100 minutes of filing of the report. So far 447 violations report is registered, out of which 247 is found correct. Apart from many applications implemented by the ECI, primarily there are a few more applications presently being customized as required for the Election ahead. Two software customized as per the Software Requirement Services (SRS) of the Election Department of Assam are productized software applications designed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), namely, the Force Deployment Software (FDS) and Election Tracking Enabled System (ELE- TRACES). The other application that is put into action is the Matdan Application which was successfully deployed during 2020 Bihar Assembly Elections.

The main functionality of the Force Deployment Software application is to randomize various categories of security personnel/forces under Assam Police for the upcoming State Assembly Elections, 2021 to be held in three phases. Other features include exclusion of personnel not available for election duty from the total available strength in the state; transfer of personnel as per instruction received from the Police HQs; formation of security personnel for poll duties; tagging of Zonal/Sector Officers and entry/tagging/allotment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF); locking transfers of all incoming officials and personnel engaged in election duty and finally printing of the Command Certificate. The Home Guards and Constables will have to carry this Command Certificate to the concerned Polling Station when they report for duty.

The demo hands-on sessions of FDS at district level has been successfully completed. And the Software is ready for randomization. Currently, deployment of two category of Police Force will be done – Home Guards and Constables through randomization. The application is expected to go LIVE four days ahead of the Poll Day for randomization of the select police forces. ELE-TRACES stand for Election Tracking Enabled System (ELE-TRACES), a location tracker application through Graphical Information System (GIS), which will track the movement of important vehicles in the upcoming Election. The Matdan Application is being used for the second time during election in India. This multipurpose app is used mainly to keep a track of details such as ROs/ DEOs/SPs/ Observer/ CEO, CEO’s Google DOCs, ECI Portal & App, NIC Portal & contacts of ECI Officials, Election department of state, Commissionaires, IG/DEOs. The app is currently Live at 47 LACs of 1 st phase.