General observer for Bhavani and Anthiyur Assembly constituencies, Prasanth Kumar Mishra, on Sunday inspected the arrangements at a polling booth in Kuttaiyur which is located in Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border.
The visit was triggered by the report, “A road to a booth through Karnataka”, published in The Hindu on March 21, which pointed out the difficulties for the poll official in reaching the Government Tribal Residential Middle School as one has to travel 54 km by road in Tamil Nadu and another 29 km in Karnataka.
The observer travelled for over two-and-half hours from Anthiyur and reached the booth on Sunday. He studied the difficulties faced by poll personnel in travelling and also in conducting polling on April 6 as there is no mobile connectivity in the village. Since there is no mobile link, the forest department will coordinate with the zonal party and the police in providing hand-held receivers for transmitting poll information to the officials at Anthiyur.
An official, who accompanied the observer, said that arrangements in the booth were studied and interaction was also held with the local people. A total of 489 electors in Kuttaiyur and Velampatti villages would cast their votes at the booth that can be reached only from Karnataka.
