Fresh delimitations to be completed by April 2018: CEC

ISLAMABAD: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice (retd) Sardar Raza Khan said on Friday that the fresh delimitations of the constituencies would be completed by April 2018.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) convened a meeting of all the provincial chief secretaries on the issue of delimitation of the constituencies. The decision was taken during the planning committee meeting of the commission here on Friday.

The meeting chaired by Secretary Election Commission Babar Yaqoob Fateh Muhammad decided to start a special campaign in 79 districts across the country for enlistment of women as voters during the next month.

The campaign will be inaugurated by the chief election commissioner. The Election Commission will ensure entry of all the female voters in the electoral rolls. In this regard, steps will be taken to register ID cards of female voters in collaboration with Nadra and the civil society. For this purpose, Nadra mobile vans will be sent for ID card registration to all those districts where the number of female voters is less than that of male voters.

The meeting was informed that work on computerised data feeding of voters’ lists is speedily progressing and it has been completed in Balochistan. It was also informed that the system of data feeding of computerised voters’ lists will be completed by next month which will provide ease in entering new voters in the district election commissioner offices. Earlier, the entry setup used to be with Nadra.

The Commission announced to start the phase-wise training of seven hundred thousand polling staff by the end of this month. In the first phase, 100 lead trainers will be trained. In the second phase, 2,500 master trainers will be trained while in the third phase the whole polling staff will be trained.

The training will be completed by May next year. The meeting also decided to observe the National Voter Day on 7th of next month in a befitting manner.

The main ceremony of the National Voter Day will be held at the President House where President Mamnoon Hussain and Chief Election Commissioner Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan will address the audience. On the provincial level, the ceremonies will be held at the governor houses and the respective provincial election commissioners will address the ceremonies. While on the divisional and district level, awareness walks will be organised in which media members of the civil society and women organisations will participate. The secretary asked the provincial election commissions to make complete arrangements for making the National Voter Day a success.