BHUBANESWAR: The district administrations of Balasore and Jagatsinghpur have made elaborate arrangements for counting of votes on Tuesday for the assembly bypolls in Balasore and Tirtol.
A three-tier security arrangement has been made at the counting centres. The innermost core will be protected by central paramilitary forces while local police will be in charge of the outer layers, chief electoral officer (CEO) Sushil Lohani said.
A total of 11 platoons of police force including seven platoons in Balasore and four platoons in Tirtol have been deployed to maintain law and order situation during the counting.
The counting for Balasore will be held at the collectorate campus in the town while in Tirtol the counting will be held at SVM College campus in Jagatsinghpur.
Counting will begin at 8 am. A total of 110 counting personnel and 57 micro-observers have been appointed for the process.
“All precautions related to Covid-19 protocols such as social distancing, face masks, face shields and sanitisation of the halls have been done. Thermal scanning of all persons will be ensured besides special barricades, transparent polythene sheets will be fixed to maintain social distancing inside the counting halls. Besides, thermal checking, face masks and sanitisers are mandatory for each counting personnel and agent,” Lohani said.
VVPAT counting of five randomly selected polling booths will be held at the end of the counting process.