New Delhi: In another technological leap forward from the 2009 general elections when it had launched the COMET online monitoring system, the Election Commission of India now hopes to supervise the 2014 national elections – the largest democratic exercise in the world – with a coded SMS-based alert system.
“We hope to use it in the next general elections,” Deputy Election Commissioner Alok Shukla told IANS.
According to Shukla, the Communication Plan for Election (COMET), which aimed at creating a database of mobile phone numbers of around 1.1 million government officials deployed for the 2009 general elections so that the poll panel could reach them quickly, has transformed into a high-tech SMS-based alert system.
The system uses coded messages to collect data about officials on duty. It also helps in monitoring events down to a particular polling booth at the click of a mouse.
The new system was first used in the assembly polls in Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur in early 2012 and in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat towards the year-end.
Shukla said the new system works by and large successfully and the officials concerned had to be called only in 10 percent of the cases for resolving the complaints reported. (IANS)
