Transcript Paper on Innovative Practices in Management of Elections At

Paper on Innovative Practices in
Management of Elections
At
Symposium on “Sharing Best
Electoral Practices”
South Zone
12th May 2010, Bangalore
By
Amlan Biswas, DEO Chitradurga
Innovative Practices
• Innovation is change in established methods /
procedures to improve quality of results or
reduce costs / time.
• In Election management in Chitradurga from
2007-08 to 2010-11 including ULB, MLA, MP,
MLC and now GP elections the innovative
practices attempted were limited to measures
for reducing costs, improving planning and
ensuring information symmetry through better
communication
Planning, Budgeting and PERT
• Program Evaluation and Review Technique
Chart was prepared with all activities, subactivities, timelines, implementational
responsibilities and monitoring responsibilities.
• Lower Staff were encouraged to have their
own PERTs
• A detailed budget on interlinked excel sheets
was prepared which has been used as a
template for subsequent elections with a little
tweaking. This has enabled us to manage all
election expenditure within allocated budgets
Use of ITES
• CEO’s e-mail network was extended to all parallel departments like
Police, Excise, Comm Tax, RTO, PWD
• Auto CAD, Mapinfo, & Google Pro used to prepare route maps,
security forces deployment maps, Counting Hall Layouts etc
• Adobe used to design and print ID Cards, Vehicle Permits etc to
save costs of printing
• Use SMS on CUG for collecting Voting Statistics during polling
and counting results by using free SMS websites Way2SMS.com
• Creation of databases on weapons licenses, CrPC cases, vehicles
and using the databases for election management
• LAN using wireless routers to collect collate and project counting
data instantaneously from individual counting rooms
• CCTV network with IP Cameras in counting halls to monitor L&O
Conclusions
• Innovative practices need to be implemented
from the core to periphery
• Practices need to be widely acceptable and
replicable laterally & vertically - buy in time,
rewarding change agents
• Innovations should be homeopathic and
become a part of the system beyond elections
• The Woods should not be missed for the trees
and vice versa.
THANK YOU