Ranchi: The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office has started geofencing all polling stations in Jharkhand to precisely define their boundaries and improve voter accessibility. CEO K. Ravi Kumar inaugurated a training session on polling station mapping and geofencing for election officials on Wednesday.
According to the Election Commission of India, each polling station should not exceed 1,200 voters to ensure efficient queue management and faster voting. To enforce this guideline, geofencing is being used to digitally map the boundaries and catchment areas of polling stations.
CEO Ravi Kumar stated that the initiative would assist Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in accessing voter data more easily and reaching every household in their assigned area. Once completed, each BLO will have a clearly defined zone of responsibility. A mobile app will also be launched, enabling voters to view their polling station’s location and identify their BLO based on GPS.
A three-day training program, held from June 11 to 13, is being conducted for officials from various districts. The training module has been developed with insights from Puducherry’s electoral system, the Census Department, and IT professionals. Participants will undergo detailed sessions through PowerPoint presentations and hands-on fieldwork in the Dhurwa sector, where they will create visual maps and identify key mapping points.
Practical team-based exercises will be followed by assessments. Officials scoring below the benchmark will be given additional training.
The session was attended by Joint CEO Subodh Kumar, Deputy CEO Dev Das Dutta, along with other officers from the CEO’s office and election officials from different districts.