Cameras, GPS, control rooms: How ECI plans to monitor West Bengal elections in real time

Kolkata: The Election Commission will deploy around 200,000 cameras to ensure 100% webcasting of voting in West Bengal, a top official of the poll body said. While polling booths will have a camera each inside and outside, sensitive booths will have three cameras, the official said.

In addition, the commission has planned several first-time steps to ensure a free and fair election in West Bengal. These include a control command centre for real-time monitoring of Central Armed Police Forces through GPS tracking, control room for monitoring webcasting, a new observer cell, police checkpoints with 360-degree cameras and a revamped dedicated complaint cell for voters.

These new initiatives have been planned with an initial budget of about ₹250 crore, sources at the poll body told ET. Three companies have been designated for the webcasting work. They are setting up booth-level infrastructure across the state. There are 80,671 polling booths in Bengal.


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Recently, top Election Commission officials held meetings with telecom service providers BSNL, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel to discuss the technical aspects, sources said. "We want uninterrupted services to ensure smooth webcasting. The three companies appointed for webcasting cameras will decide on the service providers," the official cited earlier said.

Like in Bihar polls, Election Commission officials from Delhi will be monitoring booths on a random manner during the poll days. Around 50-60 micro-observers will be sitting at the control room at the office of the state chief electoral officer, sources said.These initiatives are aimed at ensuring a "violence-free, intimidation-free and inducement-free" election with no fake voting, no booth jamming and no-source jamming, an Election Commission official said. "We intend to change the poll culture of Bengal with many such first-time initiatives," special electoral roll observer Subrata Gupta told ET.

The ECI has already deployed 5,173 flying squads and more than 5,200 static surveillance teams across the four poll-bound states and one Union Territory to address complaints within 100 minutes, sources said.