cVIGIL app turns headache for election staff

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, April 3

Though electioneering is yet to pick up pace, the citizens’ vigil app, known as cVIGIL app, which is launched by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to help people report electoral malpractices, has become a nuisance for election staff and Assistant Returning Officers (AROs).

Notably, the election authorities have to resolve every complaint received on this app within 100 minutes, but the staff concerned does not get any alert of receiving a complaint.

A flying squad member, who has been assigned the task of visiting the spot and resolving the complaint, informed, “The staff deployed in three shifts at the complaint centre has to remain alert throughout the day, which keeps refreshing the website on some computer or laptop. It does not refresh automatically. There is no alert or beep when the complaint reaches the complaint centre. Further, we have to check the app after every five minutes on our cell phone. If the app is having some beep, just like the WhatsApp, it will save a lot of time and energy. Now, the complaint centre staff has to remain stick to the computer screens and we remain stick to mobile phones throughout the day refreshing it.”

Similarly, an SDM working as ARO said, “Not just the subordinate staff, but the AROs like us too are perturbed over this app. We have to decide the status of every complaint but how is this possible to stay awake all night? If there is some alert system, no complaint will go unnoticed. The app has been updated a number of times in the last about a week, but this major thing is not added till date. Earlier, the app was not supporting the iOS (iphones).”

He further said the decider app was yet to be developed for the AROs, thus they were deciding the status of complaint by logging in on a computer or laptop every time. At present, the cVIGIL app has four versions – Citizen, Monitor, Investigator and Observer.

Meanwhile, sources said some SDMs even failed to act timely. “One complaint of a political party’s poster could not be resolved timely in Muktsar, just because the ARO was unaware that the complaint had been marked to him to take decision,” they said, adding that a number of people were even sending irrelevant pictures.

Under the prevailing system, a complaint centre is established in the District Administrative Complex, where two employees of the rank of clerk are monitoring the app in three shifts on computers.

These employees keep an eye over the app by refreshing it after every 5-10 minutes. When a complaint lands on the system, they assign it to the flying squad team located nearby within five minutes by checking their GPS location. Thereafter, the flying squad, comprising an investigator, three cops and video team member, reaches the spot.

They get 15 minutes to reach the spot, 30 minutes to resolve it. Further, the flying squad marks the complaint to the ARO for its disposal along with his/her comments, a photo or video as proof of the complaint resolved. Then the ARO gets 50 minutes to decide the status of the complaint.