The Election Commission on Thursday announced the rollout of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in 16 states and three union territories, including Delhi and Maharashtra.
The exercise will be carried out in a phased manner from May 30. With the completion of the third phase, the electoral roll in the entire country will have been revised except for Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The states and UTs where the SIR will be carried out are Delhi, Odisha, Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Telangana, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.
According to the EC, over 3.94 lakh Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will go house-to-house to 36.73 crore electors in the third phase. They will be assisted by 3.42 lakh Booth Level Agents (BLAs) appointed by political parties during the Enumeration Phase.
The house-to-house visit by BLOs is slated between May 30 and October 14 this year, and the draft electoral roll will be published between July 5 and October 21.
As for the schedule for SIR in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, the EC said it will be announced later, keeping in view weather conditions in snow-bound areas, the EC said in a statement.
The SIR has already been conducted in Bihar, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. A "special revision" was conducted in Assam.