Chennai: Public and builders planning to visit the corporation zone offices for building assessment and other trade licences would do well to wait until December 24 for revenue officials to return from RK Nagar poll duty. As part of its election work, the city corporation has, for the first time, posted all its revenue officials in Chennai to RK Nagar.
“Each assistant revenue official (ARO) has been given 15 polling booths to supervise. Earlier a team of licence surveyors and tax collectors, who are subordinates to AROs, were deployed for the purpose, but now seniors are deployed to ensure that a fool proof polling system is in place”, an ARO said.
One of the election officials said that a total of 300 EVMs have been kept in the strong room after verification by senior poll officials for the 256 polling booths.
For each control unit, 4 ballot units would be attached. In all, 1,200 ballot units are to be used and the role of ARO starts from supervising the polling stations and to ensure free fair and fair polls on December 21, the official said.
The EVMs would be checked and verified again in front of the poll observers and the functions of polling machines would be explained to representatives of candidates before transporting them to polling booths.
Meanwhile, the election department has finished training 1,800 staff, including presiding officers and booth level officers. “Nearly 3,000 officials are being employed in conducting the by-election”, the official said.
To ensure peaceful and fair election, the election department, apart from cameras and web screening in polling booths, has installed nearly 300 CCTV cameras in important junctions and streets, an all time high for an assembly constituency.
The election officials have also earmarked 19 locations for accommodating police personnel and paramilitary personnel. “Nearly 1,500 local police and 20 companies of paramilitary companies, each consisting of 80 to 100 personnel will be deployed in RK Nagar. The paramilitary forces started arriving in the constituency”, the official added.
