Now that elections to the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation are over, the district administration and GVMC officials have turned their focus on ensuring that the counting process is conducted smoothly.
Speaking to The Hindu, Collector V. Vinay Chand said that the counting will start at 8 a.m. on March 14 and it will done for all 98 wards of the GVMC at the same time.
For the first time, the district administration has identified 98 rooms on the Andhra University campus for the counting process — one room for each ward. “The counting of votes will be done for each ward in their respective allotted rooms, which is why we have identified 98 rooms,” Mr. Vinay Chand said.
The ballots have already reached the strong rooms on the AU campus and the boxes for each ward are kept in a room adjacent to the counting room, to save time needed to shift the boxes to the counting rooms.
For the counting process, the district administration has separated the locations zone-wise. In the north campus of the university, counting for zones 2, 3, 4 and 6 will be done, and in the south campus, the counting for zones 1, 5, 7 and 8 will be done.
Command centre set up
According to the Collector, CCTV cameras have been installed in all the 98 counting rooms and each room will have a videographer.
A Command and Control Centre, equipped with integrated LED screens that are linked to the CCTV cameras, has also been set up on the campus to enable officials to closely monitor the counting process.
“The counting process is expected to take at least 12 hours and will run non-stop. About 3,000 staff from the district administration and GVMC will be involved in the process,” he said.
Apart from the 3,000 staff, there will be a returning officer, AROs, GVMC zonal commissioners and eight officers of the rank of Deputy Collector. Each of the two campus locations will be under the control of one Joint Collector and they will report to the District Collector and GVMC Commissioner.
Depending on the size of the mandate of the wards, each room will have five to 10 tables.
Each table will have one counting supervisor and three counting assistants.
Since the counting process will be a non-stop process, free food and water is being provided. The agents from various parties who will be present in the room will be provided paid refreshments. Candidates also can be present in the room.
Counting process
Once the ballot papers are extracted from the sealed boxes in the presence of senior officers, they will be bundled with 25 papers in each. Thereafter, they will be randomised by putting them in a big drum. After randomisation, each counting assistant will be given 40 bundles at a time, which will be considered as rounds. “The bigger the mandate, the more the number of rounds,” said the Collector.
Media centre
For centralised dissemination of information, the district administration is setting up a media room with all facilities such as computers, power connection and Wi-Fi.
“We are also planning to install two LED screens to display the round-wise results for regular updates,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
If everything goes as per plan, the final results may be declared by 8 p.m., Mr. Vinay Chand said.
