TURA: The Expenditure Observer, Gautam Deb, IRS, on Monday held a meeting with the officials and various election teams of the five districts of Garo Hills at DRDA Hall, Tura, to review the poll preparedness vis-à-vis the expenditure monitoring in the district.
Addressing the meeting, Deb said that all the travel expenses of star campaigning, posters and handbills printed by candidates, expenses on vehicles, unusual bank transactions, unusual cash transfers, etc., have to be accounted for.
He directed all the districts to set up election control rooms that would function 24×7 and get the control room numbers published in the local newspapers immediately. He also asked the Excise department to keep account of the inflow and outflow of liquor and to set up Excise checkpoints.
The Election Observer also directed that all Assistant Expenditure Officers (AEOs) should be intensively trained saying that they are the “eyes and ears of the Election Commission”, and reviewed the district- wise formation of various election teams, such as the Flying Squads, Media Certification & Monitoring Committee (MCMC), Static Surveillance Teams (SSTs), Video Surveillance Teams (VSTs) and Video Viewing Teams (VVTs), among others.
Earlier, the Deputy Commissioner & District Election Officer, West Garo Hills, Pravin Bakshi, while welcoming the Expenditure Observer and all district teams present, said that this meeting was important as far as election preparedness and election expenditure monitoring mechanism was concerned as the Observer would have to go back and report on it immediately. This being a parliamentary election and since the work intensity is less, the accounts for all the contesting candidates would be compiled in Tura itself, he informed.
To ensure intensive preparedness of all the election teams, it was decided and announced during the meeting that a training of all AEOs, Accounting teams, VSTs and intending election agents would be held on March 21, 2014.
