Kol trails other dists in digitisation of SIR forms, EC appoints more assistant BLOs
Times of India | 19 November 2025
Kolkata: Kolkata is lagging far behind other Bengal districts in digitisation of filled Special Intensive Revision (SIR) enumeration forms collected from voters, prompting the Election Commission to appoint more assistant block level officers (BLOs) on Tuesday to speed up work and meet the Dec 4 deadline.
While over 14.2% enumeration forms have been digitised across Bengal, in Kolkata, the figure is as low as 5%. Some BLOs in Kolkata have not uploaded even 1% of the forms they were entrusted with, senior EC officials from Delhi were informed during a meeting on Tuesday. The review meet was chaired by senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti and attended by the DEOs and EROs of Kolkata North and South parliamentary constituencies. The slow progress irked the senior officials, sources privy to the discussions said.
"For various reasons, BLOs in Kolkata North and South have made little progress in digitising the enumeration forms. Eleven EROs of the two parliamentary constituencies who attended the meeting faced the EC's wrath. They have been asked to speed up the process and complete the exercise by Dec 4," a source said.
Under Kolkata North parliamentary constituency, Jorasanko and Maniktala assembly segments are at the bottom of the digitisation pile, while for Kolkata South, the worst performer is Kolkata Port assembly segment.
"Several BLOs in these three assembly constituencies are yet to digitize even 1% of the forms. This annoyed senior DEC Bharti and other officials and they instructed the DEOs and EROs to immediately appoint assistant BLOs to expedite the digitization process," another source said.
Acting upon the EC's instruction, 20 assistant BLOs were appointed for Maniktala assembly constituency on Tuesday. They will assist the BLO in collecting filled enumeration forms from voters and upload the data. The assistant BLOs, however, will not have direct access to the BLO App. An OTP will be sent to the mobile of the BLO, who will have to share it with the assistant BLOs.
Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said similar review meetings will also be held in other districts.