17 of 22 toll-free numbers of election dept ‘don’t exist’

Amit Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, September 20

The state recently announced the dates for the much-awaited urban local bodies and panchayat elections, but voters have been inconvenienced as the toll-free numbers given on the official website of the election department ‘do not exist’.

After the election announcement, people have been looking for their names in the voter lists on the website, but it does not have any information. The website has the toll-free numbers for all 22 districts of the state but 17 of them do not exist.

Interestingly, the main helpline number of the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) — 1950 — also ‘does not exist’.

Candidates as well as tech-savvy voters have been approaching the election department for vital information but the phone numbers given on the official website are not there.

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer announced the elections to the urban local bodies and panchayats on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, but the office is yet to update its website with valid toll-free numbers and the electoral rolls.

“It is a clear violation of Section 4 of the Right to Information Act under which the department should have a proactive discloser. The department has neither updated its website with all the information and nor given valid contact numbers,” said Raman Sharma, an RTI activist in Jammu.

“In the age of digitalisation everything should have been updated on the website, including forms and guidelines for the candidates. The ward-wise voter lists for the urban local bodies and halka-wise for the panchayats should have been on the website after the election date was announced,” Sharma said.

If the website is updated, it will make it easy for the voters and contestants to get information and will reduce the work pressure on the election officers.