FRC to Help Voters with Anomalies in Electoral Roll

Hyderabad:A day after the state government introduced Family Register Certificates (FRCs) to people, applications began trickling in at MeeSeva offices on Tuesday. The FRCs will help voters during the scrutiny of enumeration forms which the Election Commission will conduct from August 10 as part of the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll.

The FRC will help voters to correct entries containing various anomalies, including mismatches in names, addresses and ages, among other details. It will also help those who failed to substantiate their family origins during the mapping phase of the SIR.

Voters submitted their applications by providing details such as their Aadhaar and phone numbers, along with other mandatory information. Once the Tehsildar clears an application following scrutiny, which is expected to take two days, the applicant can collect the certificate from the MeeSeva office.

According to Election Commission officials, the ERO would invite applications in the form of claims and objections from all eligible citizens following the publication of the draft electoral roll on August 10.

After processing the claims and objections in accordance with due procedure, the ERO will decide whether to include, delete or correct entries. Discrepancies already identified by BLOs during pre-revision activities will also be taken into consideration.

All inclusions, deletions and corrections carried out during this period will be updated in the electoral roll database. After the completion of the prescribed procedure, the final electoral roll will be published on October 12.

By Tuesday, the state had completed the digitisation of 75.8 per cent, or 2.56 crore forms, while the total number of ASD (Absent, Shifted & Dead) cases had crossed 37 lakh. Hyderabad had achieved 54 per cent digitisation, with forms relating to 22.1 lakh voters yet to be digitised. The total number of ASD voters identified so far in Hyderabad stood at 4,79,405, or 10.12 per cent.

After the draft electoral roll is published on August 10, voters will begin receiving notices as the Election Commission of India (ECI) commences the period for filing claims and objections, which will continue from August 10 to September 9. In parallel, the issuance of notices and the disposal of claims and objections will begin on August 10 and continue until October 8. The final electoral roll will be published on October 12.

According to legal experts, the FRC will help voters once the draft roll is published and notices are issued. “For anomalies such as a mismatch between voter ID and Aadhaar details, the FRC can support their claims. This will increase the number of supporting documents recognised by the EC from seven to eight, following the state government’s decision,” said High Court Advocate Mohammed Waseem, who is leading a team of lawyers providing free legal assistance in SIR-related matters across Telangana.

Telangana has over one crore ration cards, covering 3.25 crore people, or about 85 per cent of the state’s population. For the first time in Telangana, people will have a physical document directly linked to a ration card. Since the formation of the state, people have been availing themselves of the facilities only in digital form rather than holding physical cards.

“The same data available in the databases will be provided to beneficiaries in a printed format after being approved by the Tehsildar. In Telangana, there is no physical ration card, and only online databases are available. There was a proposal during the BRS government, but it did not materialise,” said S.Q. Masood, a social activist.

Meanwhile, the state government is also preparing to roll out compact smart ration cards with integrated QR codes for beneficiary families. Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy will soon launch the distribution of the cards. However, there was no official comment from CEO C Sudharshan Reddy on the development.