Drive to issue I-cards to all voters in Maharashtra from December

Nagpur, Nov 23 (UNI) A drive to issue photo identity cards to every voter in Maharashtra would be launched in December, State Chief Election Officer U P S Madan said here today.

Addressing a training programme for election officers from Nagpur Division, Mr Madan said the process of taking the photographs would begin in December to cover 100 per cent of the voters in the state.

Photographs of the voters would be printed on the voters' lists also to prevent impersonation during voting and bring greater transparency and credibility in the election process. Identity cards had been issued to around 90 per cent of the voters in Maharashtra, which was commendable, he said.

The training in Nagpur today was part of a three-stage programme to train the officers concerned to ensure complete accuracy in the voter identity cards, Mr Madan said. In the first stage, district election officers were trained in Mumbai. The assistant and deputy election officers were being trained in the second stage, which included the session in Nagpur today, he said. These officers should now guide their subordinates, and this would constitute the third stage, he said.

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