Hyderabad: The upcoming elections to the local bodies in the state will be held with paper ballots.

Unlike in the elections to the Assembly and the Lok Sabha, which were held with electronic voting machines (EVMs), the polls to local bodies in the state will see reversion to paper ballots.

The officials will be using two types of ballot papers: white and pink. The State Election Commission (SEC) officials have procured over 1.31 lakh ballot boxes.

According to the officials, the state has over 74,900 ballot boxes and over 37,500 ballot boxes have been procured from the state of Gujarat and 19,450 from Maharashtra.

They said that a buffer stock of 20,000 additional boxes would be maintained to ensure availability of any number of boxes since there are 1,12,288 wards in the state. The ballot boxes are being stored in strong rooms in the district headquarters.

The arrangements of the election are proceeding on multiple fronts, with officials taking up mapping of voters’ list as per the electoral rolls approved by the Election Commission of India. The election material has already reached the mandal headquarters. The district officials have been asked to collect requisite bottles of indelible ink from the Printing and Stationery Department in Hyderabad.

With the polling scheduled to be held in five phases, two for MPTCs, ZPTCs and three for gram panchayats, the officials have been told to collect the material in advance. The officials have said that all pre-poll activities have been completed.

Elections will not be held in 14 MPTCs and 27 gram panchayats and 246 wards in view of stay orders issued by courts in various pending cases.

The Telangana High Court previously fixed September 30 as the deadline to complete polls to the local bodies. However, the SEC has sought 45 days’ extension.