Training of LG poll officials to start on 13th

Rawalpindi
District Election Commission (DEC), Rawalpindi, from Friday November 13 would start ‘Master Training Programme’ for 4,000 presiding officers and assistant presiding officers including other polling officers to conduct fair and transparent local body elections in the Rawalpindi district.
Total 22 ‘Master Trainers’ would train 4,000 presiding officers and assistant presiding officers including other polling staff to conduct local body elections here in 174 Union Councils (UC) in Rawalpindi district and in 46 Union Councils (UC) in Rawalpindi city. There would be local body elections here in 92 wards of 5 municipal committees in Rawalpindi.
The ‘Master Training Programme’ would start from November 13 to 28, 2015.
A 15-day ‘Master Training Programme’ by master trainers would be held on
the directions of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), District Election Commissioner, Rawalpindi, Muhammad Nadeem Zubair told ‘The News’ here on Wednesday.
On the other hand, the concerned returning officers (RO) have completed pre-verification of all polling stations in Rawalpindi district. The final verification process of polling stations has also been started to know the condition of buildings where polling would be held on December 5.
The returning officers and presiding officers in Rawalpindi district are also assessing about the facilities including toilet, drinking water, electricity, and buildings where polling would be held. The concerned officers are also assessing distances for staff to provide them transport facility.
District Election Commissioner, Rawalpindi, Muhammad Nadeem Zubair said that they have completed a proper election training for ‘Master Trainers’. Master Trainers have completed their training and now they would train presiding officers, assistant presiding officers and polling officers to conduct fair and transparent local body elections, he said. The ‘Master Training Programme’ would be of a 15-day period. He also said that they have sent duty roasters of election staff to returning officers in Rawalpindi district. After final approval by returning officers we would send duty roasters to all election staff in Rawalpindi district, he claimed.
He said on the directions of Election Commission of Pakistan they have chosen duty staff from all government departments. Presiding officer would be of grade-17 and assistant presiding officer would be of grade-16. All other staff would work under concerned officers.
He said that ‘Master Training Programme’ would be held in 10 different points here at Gordon College, TMA Hall Potohar Town, Rawalpindi, Murree, Taxila, Kalar Syedan, Kahuta, Kotli Satian and Gujjar Khan. It would be compulsory to attend training programme otherwise strict action would be taken, he warned.
He said that we will provide training to 300 people on daily basis. There would be total 30 Returning Officers and 60 Assistant Returning Officers here in Rawalpindi. Through a comprehensive training, we could avoid mistakes in local body elections, he claimed.
He also said that there are total of 120 Union Councils in ‘Zila Council’ jurisdiction while 46 Union Councils in Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation and 8 Union Councils are in Murree.
The District Election Commission, Rawalpindi, has established 1,911 polling stations including 502 for males and 504 for females and 905 for combined. Similarly, there would be 4,763 polling booths — 2,463 for males and 2,300 for females. The total voters in Rawalpindi district are 26,45,603.
Similarly, the Election Commission, Rawalpindi, has also decided to install
CCTV cameras at all 1,911 polling stations to control counterfeit votes besides monitoring overall security of the stations.
District Election Commission (DEC), Rawalpindi, Muhammad Nadeem Zubair said that polling would start from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. without any break on December 5, 2015. “If anybody tried to cast bogus votes, he would face the music,” he warned.