EVM/VVPAT Awareness Campaign at Institutions & public places at Silchar

March 29: EVM/VVPAT awareness campaign has begun across the state with voters participating in mock voting to familiarise themselves with the device in connection with the ensuing Parliamentary Election, 2019.This awareness programme is going on in all the districts of Assam. The Assembly Level Master Trainers (ALTs) are deputed for carrying out this awareness programme. At Cachar too, the said awareness campaign for the voters is going on since mid February.

On Friday, a total of 22 Assembly Level Master Trainers (ALTMs) were drafted for the purpose of carrying on EVM/VVPAT awareness campaign at various colleges, government offices and public places. Practical demonstration was given as regards the procedure of voting in EVM. The said awareness was conducted in the following venues:

• Executive Engineer, PHE Div-1 office, Silchar
• Civil Hospital, Silchar
• Veterinary Hospital, Silchar
• Executive Engineer, PHE Div-I1 office, Silchar
• Silchar Medical College & Hospital
• Addl. Chief Engineer, PHE, Silchar office
• NIT, Silchar
• LICI Div-I, Silchar
• LICI Div-II, Silchar
• LICI Divisional Office, Meherpur, Silchar
• Silchar Polytechnic
• Veterinary Hospital, Ghungoor, Silchar
• C.D. Home, Silchar
• APDCL, Meherpur, Silchar
• Nerest NSK (NRC), Cachar
• Radhamadhab College, Silchar
• Addl. Chief Engineer, Zone-V, Irrigation, Silchar
• Goldighi Mall, Silchar
• Trends Shopping Mall, Silchar
• Bazar Kolkata Shopping Mall, Silchar
• Executive Engineer, PWD Building Division, Silchar
• Executive Engineer, PWD Mech. Division, Silchar
• Executive Engineer, PWD Electrical Division, Silchar
• Settlement Office, Silchar
• Development Office, Silchar
• D.T. Office, Silchar

The awareness campaign was spearheaded by 22 Assembly Level Master Trainers. They included Subhendu Saha, Narayan Ch. Paul, Arup Kar, Alok Bhattacharjee, Sudhanshu Shekar Bhattacharjee, Debobrato Acharjee, Salil Chakraborty, Dr. Soumitra Nath, Sagarmoy Das, Dilip Roy, Arunabha Bhattacharjee, Sudarshan Gupta, Sanjoy Kumar Deb Choudhury, Dr. Gongesh Bhattacharjee, Partha Pratim Nath, Kaushik Deb, Sanjib Roy, Dr. Jibendu Dutta, Joydeep Paul, Dr. Apratim Nag, Udayan Bhattacharjee and Probal Bhattacharjee.

On Saturday also, EVM/VVPAT awareness campaign will be conducted at Executive Engineer, PWD NH Division, Silchar, Office of the Asstt. Labour Commissioner, Silchar and Soil Conservator Office, Silchar. The awareness team in these 3 places will comprise of Subhendu Saha and Narayan Chandra Paul. Awareness will also be conducted on Saturday at Silchar College, Lalit Jain Commerce College, Silchar, Ramanuj Gupta College, Silchar and Vivekananda College, Silchar. The awareness team will comprise of Sanjoy Kumar Deb Choudhury and Dr. Gongesh Bhattacharjee.

Around 22.3 lakh Ballot Units, 16.3 lakh Control Units and nearly 17.3 lakh VVPATs will be used for the forthcoming elections in 2019. This number of machines includes the buffer stock for training as well as replacements.

Till date, Electronic Voting Machines have been used in 113 General Elections of State Assemblies and 3 Lok Sabha Elections since 2000. Use of EVMs has ended the days of booth capturing and the delays and errors in counting of ballot papers. Also during the ballot paper era, large number of votes in each Assembly Constituency ended up being invalid. There have been instances of invalid votes being higher than even the winning margin in several elections.

Addition of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) to the EVM has helped strengthen the voters’ trust and transparency of the voting process. A VVPAT is an independent printer system attached with the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) that allows the voters to verify that their votes are cast as intended.  VVPAT slips will be visible to the voter for seven seconds behind the transparent screen of VVPAT, before falling into the sealed compartment at the base of the machine.

The specially designed thermal paper, to be used in the VVPAT is capable of retaining the printout for more than five years so that the printout is available for manual verification by the Court, if required in need of a dispute for cross checking the counting of votes cast.

The EVMs and VVPATS being used in the ECI election process are manufactured only at the two premium PSUs – Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) under the technical expertise of an independent Technical Expert Committee and supervision of the Election Commission making them absolutely tamper proof.