Garuda App to ensure online mapping of all polling stations in Punjab: CEO Punjab Dr S Karuna Raju

Commission to complete mapping process in mission mode at Ludhiana in next three days 

Ludhiana, October 22, 2021: In order to ensure faster, smarter, transparent and timely completion of election work with ease, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has introduced Garuda app for digital mapping of all polling stations by adding latitude and longitude by the Booth Level Officers. 

Interacting with media before holding a poll preparedness review meeting at PAU Ludhiana, Dr S Karuna Raju along with Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma, Commissioner of Police Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, said that through this app, BLOs would upload photos and location information of the polling stations from their registered mobile numbers. 

He said that app would help to minimize the paper works and the BLOs would be able to add voter names, deletion of names or modification of addresses in the electoral roll.

He told that the details of assured facilities including toilets, wheelchair, drinking water, electricity, sheds, chairs, ramps for differently-abled in polling booths would also be added there and can be checked online. 

He added that in next three days, the ECI would complete the entire process in Ludhiana by running the drive in mission mode. 

Chief Electoral Officer Punjab said that due to Covid-19 pandemic, number of polling booths has been enhanced to 24659 polling booth to 23211 booths. 

Dr S Karuna Raju said that the Commission was fully prepared for the ensuing elections. 

Further in order to ensure that every eligible was voter covered in the voter list, he asked the officers to run extensive awareness activities in their areas under Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) to encourage the voters to participate in the polls besides deleting dead voters and others logical errors. 

Dr Karuna Raju had detailed interaction with the officers of the district administration on election preparedness. 

He also inspected the First Level Checking (FLC) of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) being carried out at Punjab Agriculture University (PAU) since September 30.

Prominent among present on the occasion included Joint Police Commissioner J Elanchezhian, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Urban Development) Sandeep Kumar, ACA GLADA Sandeep Rishi, Additional Deputy Commissioner (G) Rahul Chaba,  Additional Deputy Commissioner (Khanna) Sakatar Singh Bal, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Jagraon) Dr Nayan, SDMs Dr Harjinder Singh Bedi, Vikramjeet Singh Panthey, Dr Vaneet Kumar, Jagdeep Sehgal, Vikas Heera, Himanshu Gupta, Manjeet Kaur, RTA Narinder Singh Dhaliwal, Joint MC Commissioner Poonampreet Kaur, Ankur Mahindru, DDPO Sanjeev Kumar and others.