Bengal to add 9,000 booths; digitisation nears finish

Kolkata: As digitisation of Enumeration Forms almost reaches the last lap in the present phase of Special Intensive Revision (SIR), altogether 9,000 booths in West Bengal are going to increase, following booth rationalisation instruction by the Election Commission of India (ECI). The present number of booths is 80,641.

The ECI has instructed the District Election Officers (DEOs) in Bengal to complete rationalisation of polling stations by December 2025. The total number of booths in the state is going to increase to around 90,000, a senior ECI official said.

In a recent letter, Bengal CEO directed officials to "conduct an extensive survey during the ongoing exercise of rationalisation of polling stations to identify those urban areas where Group Housing Societies and high-rise residential buildings are located so as to find out whether adequate rooms such as common facilitation area/community halls/schools are available at ground floor within the premises of such societies for the purpose of setting up a polling station to cater to the resident electors."


The digitisation work has been fully completed in three districts of the state, including Alipurduar, Dakshin Dinajpur and Purba Burdwan. In other districts, it is almost in the final stages.