With 10 days left to complete the enumeration phase of the second round of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, the Election Commission of India on Monday (Nov 24, 2025) said that over 47% of the enumeration forms distributed in 12 states and union territories have been digitised.
Goa achieved the highest digitization at 76.89% followed by Rajasthan at 72.20% while Kerala and Uttar Pradesh have the lowest at 23% and 26.6% respectively.
The enumeration phase, which began on November 4, will end on December 4. The draft list will be published on December 9, after which the deadline for making claims and objections will begin.
According to the survey, out of 51 lakh voters covered in this SIR, 50,50,24,723 or 99.07% have been collected and 24,13,75,229 (47.35%) digitized.
Currently, SIR is held in Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.
The enumeration phase includes the distribution of forms, the collection of completed forms and the uploading of data to the Commission’s website through dedicated applications. The entire exercise is conducted by Cabin Level Officers (BLOs), making them the most important cog in the wheel. However, BLO is racing against time.
While some states like West Bengal witnessed protests due to “excessive workload”, there were reports of suicides by BLOs due to alleged work stress. In Kerala, a BLO who complained of stress was offered to leave SIR duties. However, he expressed his willingness to continue.
A correspondent of The Hindu visited the tehsil office in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh and saw BLOs swarming the camp run by the district authorities to monitor the implementation of SIR. Most of them demanded an explanation from senior officials regarding the uploading of documents.
“How are we supposed to fill so many forms in such a short time. I am a teacher. Do I complete the syllabus or fill these forms? I am 55 years old and I don’t have the technological means to understand all this,” a distressed Manju Devi told The Hindu.
She said she was confused by the process as the forms were distributed only to those who voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “Then what is the point of doing the exercise? When we upload the data, sometimes similar names appear,” she said.
Rajesh Kumar, another school teacher who doubles up as a BLO said, “The BLO app often crashes. Sometimes it takes a lot of time when we want to upload photos. And if we miss the process, we have to start again. While we are doing work, our supervisor keeps calling us to monitor the progress. Should we answer calls or do our work?”
Many BLOs also asked their families for help in this regard. A BLO in Meerut, who is an Anganwadi worker, said she employed her daughter for digitisation.
Most BLOs are teachers in government schools, Anganwadi workers, mid-day workers, staff like patwari, amin or lekhpal, panchayat secretaries and village level workers, health workers, auxiliary nurses and midwives, postmen and electricity bill readers and clerks in urban areas. When the Election Commission launched SIR, BLOs underwent intensive training on rules, enumeration of forms and data entry.
A senior government official said that there is huge pressure on them to complete the work by December 4. “All other work took a back seat”.
Published – 24 Nov 2025 20:45 IST
