SIR: The notice period may require further extension to complete

The slow progress of hearings held under the special intensive review (SIR) notice period of electoral rolls makes an extended deadline by the Election Commission of India too much of an impossibility.

At the rate the process is going, the notice period itself could take two to three months, with claims and objections delaying it even further.

EKI recently extended the notice period until November 5 from the previous October 15. Accordingly, the deadline for submitting complaints and objections was moved from September 16 to October 7, with an extension of three weeks. The final roles are to be announced on November 9.

The notice period, along with the period for claims and objections, began to run on August 17, after the Enumeration phase was extended twice.

However, the electoral authorities have not yet finished delivering the notices to voters. While nearly 93 million voters have been listed for notification, only about 62 million voters have been served so far.

Daily goals

The daily targets for delivery of notices were increasing every week, making it impossible for the booth level officers to meet. Except for VIPs, BLOs do not visit home to deliver notices. Instead, they call voters on the phone and ask them to come pick up a notice. If voters do not show up, the notice will remain undelivered.

Hearings, on the other hand, continue to lag behind, below 15% as of September 9. Hearings were completed for only about 13,00,000 voters, of which nearly 80,000 voters remained to submit their documents. With respect to a whopping 43,18,071 voters, the hearing dates have expired and a new hearing must be called. In 28,841 cases even the translated date has passed.

“We do not insist that voters attend hearings only on scheduled dates. BLOs ask voters to bring relevant documents and whenever they arrive with documents, we will upload them,” shared an official acting as Assistant Electoral Registration Officer.

The provision that the verification of documents must be carried out only by the district election officer is another factor that exacerbates the delay.

Verification of documents pertaining to a total of 5,05,741 voters is underway with the respective DEOs, with a third of them pending for a period of five days.

Published – 11 Sep 2026 20:08 IST