IT apps to be activated to check code violation

BHUBANESWAR: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed the Government for effective use of IT applications to ensure free and fair polls. The IT applications, particularly the eVigil App, was successfully operated in the recent Assembly elections held last year in five States. Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa said the eVigil App will be activated in Odisha once the election dates are notified.

Through this App, any citizen can upload photographs or videos of model code of conduct (MCC) violations. The enforcement agencies will have to attend to the complaint and upload the action taken within 100 minutes, he said and added that 20,000 complaints were received through this App in the five States which went to polls last year. Majority of the complaints were found to be genuine and action were initiated to take corrective measures, he said.

The SAMADHAN App helps to resolve complaints filed online and political parties or citizens need not depend on officials accepting/not-accepting written complaints. Besides, the new SUBIDHA App is an integrated application-single window service on first come first serve basis to streamline candidate nomination, permissions, counting and results display. In addition to these, Voter Helpline Mobile App, PwD App and Observers App will be used in the forthcoming elections, he said.