ELECTORAL LISTS
MULTAN, Feb 5th:The revision of electoral rolls 2007 with the help of NADRA will be completed by December 31, and
a formal announcement of final publication of the electoral rolls 2012 will be made on January 1, 2012, a senior official in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) revealed to Daily Times on Friday. The source confided that while efforts were going on with regard to revision of existing electoral rolls in collaboration with NADRA, it came to the knowledge of the ECP that the Population Census Organisation (PCO), for the purpose of population census, 2011, had completely changed the scheme of charges, circles and census blocks through fresh demarcation of aforesaid entities and thereby the number of census blocks increased from 100,000 to 140,000. This change had adversely disturbed the electoral rolls 2007, the source said.It further said that in view of this situation, the ECP held a meeting with PCO, in which a presentation was given about the details of changes made in the existing charges, circles and census blocks. However, PCO promised to give the hard and soft copy of the new description of the changed charges, circles and census blocks as well as the maps of these entities.The source also said that a meeting with NADRA was held on February 3 under the chairmanship of the chief election commissioner, in which all the provincial election commissioners were also present, to analyse the changes and to discuss the further course of action in detail. Two proposals came up for consideration, (i) Whether electoral rolls 2007 should be revised on the basis of the existing census blocks, or (ii) fresh electoral rolls be prepared in view of the changes made in the existing census blocks.The consensus was that fresh electoral rolls were required on the basis of new census, circles and blocks. After analysing all technical aspects, NADRA agreed to provide preliminary electoral rolls by converting the existing electoral rolls 2007, according to new census blocks, to the ECP within the next 10 days in every district.
The ECP in consultation with NADRA will also prepare a detailed project plan along with the revision of timeline/schedule, budget estimates, requisite requirement documents, request for proposals (RFPs) and request for quotations (RFQs), and finalise and sign MoUs/agreements with NADRA and the PCO. The ECP will also undertake the revision of existing forms and guidelines for verifying officials and printing. In addition, the project implementation will be managed jointly by ECP and NADRA through a three-layer project management and monitoring mechanism.