Poll panel's special drive to clean up voters list

Agartala, March 19 (IANS) To ensure error-free voter-lists and eliminate duplication of names, the Election Commission has launched a nation-wide drive NERPAP which will continue till mid-August, an official said here on Thursday.

"The 'Aadhaar' number and other contact detail seeding NERPAP (National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme) has been launched country-wide and it would continue till August 15," Tripura Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjay Kumar Rakesh told reporters.

He said: "NERPAP was launched in most parts of the country on March 3. It would start in Tripura on April 1 through a door-to-door campaign. After completion of the programme, duplication of names of electors in the electoral list would be almost zero."

According to Election Commission statistics, 85 million names on India's electoral rolls are either fake or duplicate.

Rakesh said that under the Representation of People's Act, getting registered in the voters' list at more than one place is a punishable offence.

"To make NERPAP successful, special camps once a month on a Sunday, door-to-door campaign and various other types of publicity would be conducted to make the people aware and to participate in the programme," he added.

The booth-level officers would go to each household to distribute the form and to collect the information of the electors.

About the Supreme Court's direction not to make 'Aadhaar' number mandatory in providing government facilities, the official said it would not be a compulsion.

About 500 million of India's 850 million voters have Aadhaar numbers and the rest are expected to get them before this year-end.