In view of the Covid pandemic, the limit of voters falling in a polling booth has been reduced from existing 1400 to 1200 for the 2022 Assembly polls in Punjab.

Chief electoral officer (CEO) Punjab, S Karuna Raju on Tuesday said due to the reduction in the number of voters for a polling booth, the number of polling booths across the state has gone up. He said the number of polling booths in the state has been enhanced to 24689 from the existing 23211.

Raju also said the Election Commission (EC) has given its concurrence to arrange additional EVMs (electronic voting machines) required for the ensuing Assembly election in Punjab. He said that 10500 Control Units (CU) and 21100 VVPATs are being transported from different districts of Madhya Pradesh to various districts of Punjab.

Raju said with the addition of these machines, the office of CEO Punjab will have 45316 Ballot Units (BU), 34942 Controlling Units (CU) and 37576 VVPAT machines. The CEO said the EVMs are being transported duly adopting the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) set by the EC. Raju said that district-wise Nodal Officers are picking up these machines from Madhya Pradesh in GPS fitted special transport containers under tight security after proper scanning.

He said in10 districts of Punjab namely Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Ferozepur, Sri Mukatsar Sahib, Mansa and Amritsar, the EVM-VVPAT have safely reached the district headquarters adding that in the rest of the districts, these machines will be reached within two days.

The CEO said the First Level Checking (FLC) of these machines will be undertaken in the presence of representatives of recognised national and state political parties in the prescribed time.

He said warehouses have been set up across the state in which multi-tier security arrangements have been made along with the installation of the CCTV cameras. Raju said that amidst the prevailing pandemic precautions are also being implemented strictly. All efforts are being made to ensure smooth, transparent, peaceful and hassle-free elections in the state, he added.