Nizamabad records highest 98.9% Aadhaar-Voter Card linkage

Nizamabad: Nizamabad will become the first district in India by this month end to complete the Aadhaar-Voter Card linkage pilot project. So far, the district has completed nearly 98.9 per cent linkage and removed the bogus, duplicate and double voters.

• Collector orders to finish the exercise by May end
• District will be the first to complete pilot project in the country

In 2014 general elections, many urban constituencies recorded below 50 per cent of polling in India. The Election Commission (EC) thought that the bogus, double and ineligible voters were cause for decreasing of polling percentage in the country. In order to contain that, the EC took up the EPIC Card and Aadhaar Linkage project from Nizamabad district on pilot basis as 96 per cent of population in the district were already linked with Aadhaar for various government schemes.

Nizamabad District Collector D Ronald Ross said, “In this project, the revenue Block-Level Officials (BLO) collect the voters’ EPIC card and Aadhaar card numbers at ward and division levels. After that, they link it with voters’ nominal roles. In this process, the officials will come to know of the bogus, duplicate, ineligible, migrated, double entry and death voters. After that they will issue the notice to the double voters and remove them.”

According to the district election wing officials, in Nizamabad district total 17, 53,155 voters were there in nine Assembly constituencies. Out of this, 13, 80,221 voters linked their EPIC card with Aadhaar card. The officials recorded that nearly 19,992 voters were duplicate; 3,462-Ineligible; 6,722-Duplicate; 59,707-Shifted; 2,09,998 -door locked and 53,725- Not Enrolled, totally completing the 98.95 per cent of the survey.

But in urban constituencies like Nizamabad Urban and Kamareddy, the Aadhaar linkage was very poor. In Nizamabad Urban constituency 40.09 per cent and in Kamareddy constituency 70.57 per cent voters were linked with Aadhaar. Where as in rural constituencies, the Aadhaar linkage percentage was very high with Bodhan at 95.20 per cent, Jukkal at 93.58, Balkonda at 92.68, Banswada at 92.58, Yellareddy at 87.67, Armoor at 85.20 and Nizamabad Rural at 76.

Earlier in 2014 general elections, Nizamabad Urban constituency recorded only 54 per cent polling, now in EPIC-Aadhaar project also only 40.09 per cent voters were linked their voter cards with Aadhaar. Nearly 1,18,236 voters doors were locked when BLOs visited their houses. “It is clearly shows that these voters does not show any interest in linking their voter ID cards with Aadhaar, because they have one or more voter ID cards or may be migrating from that place,” said BLOs who visited their houses.

Collector Ronald Ross, who is putting special interest in the project, ordered the officials to finish the exercise by May end and apart from asking them to conduct a special drive with the help of political parties. Collector urged the voters to link their EPIC cards with Aadhaar by sending SMS, using Election Commissions mobile applications, calling on 1950 toll free number or on EC website.

He expressed hope that after this campaign the remaining voters would link their EPIC cards with their Aadhaar cards and make the exercise a successful one. After this campaign, the officials would issue notice to Aadhaar unlinked voters and remove their voters, the District Collector informed.