Mumbai: To ensure participation of more voters, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to increase the number of polling booths in the forthcoming civic polls. The number of booths will be increased to 9,000, said civic officials.
In the 2012 BMC polls, there were 7,639 polling booths in the city. “We want to ensure that people should come in large numbers, and they should travel a long way to vote. Hence, we are planning to increase the number of booths to 9,000 this year,” said a senior civic official.
According to the civic officials, there should be one polling booth every kilometre. There are about 90 lakh voters in the city. In the voter registration drive, which was conducted this year, about three lakh new voters were added to the voters list. About 12,000 ballot boxes are required in the city for the election process. Of them, some 2,000 boxes would be kept stand-in.
“We have demanded AVM machines from other districts, where elections are not being held. Accordingly, additional AVM machines are being brought from districts like Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts,” said a senior civic official. About 50,000 officials and employees from BMC and various government agencies would be deployed for the BMC polls.
