New Delhi, May 14: The Election Commission of India has declared the rollout of the third phase of its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) program, marking a significant step toward completing a nationwide update of electoral records. The drive will cover a diverse range of regions, from Karnataka and Telangana to Odisha and the Northeastern states. Commission officials stated that the initiative is designed to bolster the integrity of the democratic process by eliminating inaccurate data and illegal entries from the rolls.
The schedule released on Thursday indicates that Booth Level Officers will begin their door-to-door visits at the end of May. This massive administrative task involves checking the credentials of nearly 37 crore citizens to ensure that only eligible voters are listed. The ECI affirmed that this phase is crucial for identifying deceased individuals or those who have moved, as well as addressing the issue of duplicate registrations. “The SIR was launched to remove these entries and ensure the list is accurate and updated,” the poll body asserted.
Transparency remains a central theme of the rollout, with the Commission requesting all political parties to appoint agents for every polling booth. These agents will work alongside government officers to provide a layer of accountability during the enumeration phase. The Commission declared that previous phases have already involved over 6.3 lakh officers, highlighting the unprecedented scale of the ongoing revision.
The exercise is set to conclude in mid-October, by which time a majority of India’s states will have undergone the intensive revision process. Government representatives maintained that the goal is to create a “clean” electoral roll that minimizes the risk of fraud or administrative error. The ECI noted that the states of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh would remain outside the current phase’s scope, to be addressed at a later stage.
