New Delhi: Nearly all of Delhi’s 1.45 crore registered voters have now been given enumeration forms as part of the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.However, digitisation of the forms that have been collected continues to lag significantly even though two weeks have passed since the distribution of the forms began in the city, official data released Tuesday showed.According to the cumulative status report issued by the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO), Delhi, as of 8 pm on July 14, enumeration forms have been distributed to over 1.43 crore of the capital’s electors, taking the overall coverage to nearly 98.6%.However, the back-end digitisation process — which shows how many of the forms have been filled in and returned by people before being successfully mapped by booth-level officers (BLOs) — remains at an early stage, with just over 17 lakh forms, or around 12% of the electorate, digitised so far.The Election Commission’s focus has now shifted to collecting the forms that have been filled in. Voters who do not submit their forms over the next two weeks may risk having their names deleted from the electoral rolls if they are found to be untraceable or ineligible. “In the first 15 days, our focus was on the distribution of the forms. In the next 15, we will focus on collecting them,” said an official.Typically, a name is deleted if a voter is found to have shifted his residence, died or is untraceable or ineligible (which means, eligibility cannot be established under the prescribed criteria), the official said.During the door-to-door exercise in the capital, BLOs found that many registered voters were not available at their recorded addresses, raising the possibility that some of their names could eventually be struck off the rolls.“It is not possible at this moment to predict the number of names likely to be deleted because house-to-house visits will continue till July 29, and forms that are duly filled in and submitted till that day will be accepted,” the official said. “Many people submit forms close to the deadline. So, we are expecting the number of such forms will increase in the last two weeks. The total number of deletions will be known only when draft rolls are published,” the official added.Among the districts, New Delhi became the first to record 100% distribution of enumeration forms, while North East followed closely with 99.99% coverage. Central (99.48%), East (99.3%), Central North (99.28%) and South West (99.2%) also crossed the 99% mark. North West recorded the lowest distribution at 94.3%, followed by Outer North (97.2%) and South East (97.9%).The pace of digitisation has varied widely across districts. Outer North led with 25.2% of its forms digitised, followed by South West (17.6%), Central North (15.4%), North (14.7%) and West (14.6%). At the other end, Old Delhi and East (both 7.2%) and South East (7.9%) reported the lowest digitisation levels.The enumeration phase of the SIR exercise, which began on June 30, will continue till July 29 in the city, during which BLOs are conducting door-to-door visits to distribute and collect the forms.The Election Commission is scheduled to publish the draft electoral rolls on Aug 5, following which electors will have a month to file claims and objections before the final rolls are published on Oct 7.







