KSRTC to operate additional buses for rural voters on polling day

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will ply additional buses in Sullia, Belthangady and Puttur taluks of Dakshina Kannada district on Saturday to enable people to travel for free to cast their vote, said Deputy Commissioner and district election officer Sasikanth Senthil S. on Wednesday.

Addressing presspersons, he said 160 such buses would be operated on routes with low frequency of buses. The buses will have on a sticker with the words ‘Election Special’ and will make three trips from morning to evening. Some of them will operate via election booths.

Mr. Senthil said the Election Commission has now permitted issuance of voter slips on election day outside the polling stations. Those who need them can get them from the voters’ facilitation centres of the commission on the spot. But it is not mandatory to produce the slips for voting. If a voter’s name is on the voters’ list, he or she can produce EPIC or other documents specified by the EC. Producing voter slips will only help in identifying the serial number in the voters’ list easily. EC officials have distributed slips to 70 % of the voters, he said.

The Deputy Commissioner said the district has 517 ‘critical’ polling booths and web cameras have been fixed at 97. Micro observers have been posted to 221 booths.

He said policewomen will screen burqa-clad women. Voters who arrive at the polling stations at the closing hours (6 p.m.) and stand in queue will be issued slips and permitted to vote beyond 6 p.m.

He said the district has enough additional electronic voting machines and voter-verifiable paper audit trail machines. The VVPATs alone are 40% in excess in order to meet emergencies.

An additional 40 teams of six polling staff will be kept ready. The commission will supply food to the polling staff, Mr. Senthil said.