Page 249 - Leap of Faith Vol - 2

Technology as Enabler Chapter 10

discussion on the subject. On January 16, 2023 a India. This will be taken forward applying specific
discussion took place between the Commission and conditions such as geographical areas, elector
political parties at the Constitution Club in New Delhi. demographics, etc., based on various analytics obtained
Representatives from all eight recognised national on a near real time basis, such as migration patterns.
parties and 40 recognised state parties participated. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology for
The actual implementation of multi-constituency RVMs tagging polling stations will help voters to locate their booth,
will depend upon a host of factors like broad political and polling officers to implement booth rationalisation and
consensus, statutory amendments, and administrative integration in case of any natural disaster, etc.
measures. The number of places they would be actually Election Commission of India aims at using e-learning
deployed is another issue to be figured out. The counting tools to educate the voters, and train the election
should be done locally, and the results conveyed to the officers. Understanding and piloting the use of block
relevant Returning Officer. chain technology to ensure the confidentiality, security

This technology is likely to be a major advancement and integrity of remote voting is under process. Various
towards inclusive and participatory elections. other technologies are being developed to aid the
election officers to take informed decisions on spot.
The Road Ahead Monitoring systems are being developed using ICT and AI
While fostering technology has yielded many dividends technologies for real time analytics and queue
for electoral management in India over the last 40 years, management thereby enhancing surveillance and
work is in progress in many crucial areas to improve the security of voting process. Making online nomination
efficiency and quality of services. They are in various filing process universal is on the cards.
stages of development; and implementing some of them The road to perfection is always under construction.
would require statutory backing. To give an example – on Technology plays an important role in paving it.
March 3, 2015 - Election Commission of India had
launched National Electoral Roll Purification and
Authentication Programme (NERPAP) in all states/UTs
with the major objective of linking AADHAAR with
Electoral Roll database. When the work was in full swing,
the adverse interim Supreme Court judgement dated
August 11, 2015 in the WP (C) No.494 of 2012 in Justice
K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) v/s Union of India & Ors halted
the process. The issue of AADHAAR linking with Electoral
Photo Identity Card (EPIC) has finally received statutory
backing through enactment of Election Laws
(Amendment) Act, 2021.
Facial Recognition is the technology for identification of
electors who possess more than one EPIC, anywhere in

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