Now that the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation elections are over, the district administration and GVMC officials have shifted their focus to ensure that the counting process continues smoothly.
Speaking to Hindu, Collector v. Vinay Chand said that counting of votes would begin at 8 am on March 14 and it would be for all the 98 wards of GVMC at the same time.
For the first time, the district administration has identified 98 rooms in the Andhra University campus for the counting process – one room for each ward. Mr. Vinod Chand said, “The votes will be counted for each ward in their respective allocated rooms, due to which we have identified 98 rooms.”
Ballots have already been delivered to strong rooms on the AU campus to save the time required to move ballots to rooms and boxes for each ward are placed in the rooms adjacent to the counting room.
The district administration has segregated the locations for the counting process. On the university’s north campus, counting will be done for zones 2, 3, 4 and 6, and on the south campus, counting will be done for zones 1, 5, 7 and 8.
Set up command center
According to the collector, CCTV cameras have been installed in all the 98 counting rooms and each room will have a videographer.
A command and control center equipped with integrated LED screens connected to CCTV cameras has also been set up in the campus to enable officials to closely monitor the counting process.
“The counting process is expected to take at least 12 hours and will run non-stop. About 3,000 employees of the district administration and GVMC will be involved in this process, ”he said.
Apart from 3,000 employees, there will be a Returning Officer, ARO, GVMC Zonal Commissioner and eight officers of the rank of Deputy Collector. Each of the two campuses will be under the control of a Joint Collector and they will report to the District Collector and GVMC Commissioner.
Depending on the size of the ward’s mandate, each room will have five to 10 tables.
Each table will have one counting supervisor and three counting assistants.
Since the counting process will be a non-stop process, free food and water are being provided. Agents of various parties who will be present in the room will be provided with paid refreshments. Candidates can also appear in the room.
Counting process
Once ballots are taken out of sealed boxes in the presence of senior officials, they will be tied with 25 question papers each. Next, they will be randomized by placing them in a large drum. After randomization, each computation assistant will be given 40 bundles at a time, which will be considered round. “The larger the mandate, the greater the number of rounds,” the collector said.
Media Center
For centralized dissemination of information, the district administration is setting up a media room with all the facilities like computer, electricity connection and Wi-Fi.
“We plan to install two LED screens to display the results round-wise for regular updates,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
If everything goes according to plan, the final results can be declared by 8 pm, Mr. Vinay Chand said.
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