EC to set up institutes on election management,Lucknow to get one

Officials said the RIDEMs would be advance resource centres for learning,research,training and extension of participatory democracy and election management. It will build human resources and capacity for efficient conduct of free,fair and periodic elections.

The institute in Lucknow will be set up at the chief electoral office in the Secretariat building in Janpath Market,Hazratganj area. UP Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha said the centre was likely to be functional from July. The authorities are on the lookout for a separate building for the institute with a residential block along with it. “RIDEM will be part of an exercise to standardise the entire training programme of elections,” Sinha said.

Officials said the objective of setting up these regional institutes is to impart training for meticulous,accurate and voter-friendly implementation of the election process. Officers will be given training at these institutes about the election process and latest directives and guidelines of ECI regarding elections throughout the year.

“One regional institute has been proposed in Lucknow. There will be a calendar of programmes for training of different poll-related exercises like photo electoral roll,EVMs,expenditure monitoring and systematic voters’ education and electoral participation (SVEEP),” Sinha said.

ECI experts and senior IAS and IPS officers with experience of conducting several successful elections will give training to District Election Officers,Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Returning Officers (RO) in these institutes and prepare them as master trainers. These master trainers will give further training to other poll-related staff like booth-level officers in the districts.

Sources said these regional centres will have to cover the entire country and hence each centre will be responsible for training officers of adjoining states also. Sources said that Lucknow would be the training institute for UP,Uttarakhand and Bihar .

The ECI has asked CEOs of the states with the these RIDEMs to submit a proposal with their requirement details,sources said,adding that the ECI intends to make the RIDEMs functional as early as possible and complete at least one year of training before Lok Sabha polls in 2014.