EC explains new ERONET options for SIR notice disposal to EROs through demo video; no written instructions yet

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EROs in 22 States and UTs where the drive is complete lacked these options. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Days after adding new options to its ERONET portal that allow Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to dispose of notice cases without hearings or documents, the Election Commission (EC) is now explaining the changes to officials through a demonstration video prepared by the Election Commission’s Information Technology (IT) Department, with no written documents circulated so far, sources told The Hindu. 

The three new options are available to EROs in the remaining 10 States and Union Territories (UTs) where the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is still under way, according to the video accessed by The Hindu.

EROs across States, who have the final authority over the preparation of electoral rolls in their constituencies, had been asking for these options since the beginning of the notice phase. The changes come amid allegations of centralisation of ERONET under the ECINET software that “curtailed” the powers of the field officers.

The options have been introduced even as final rolls have already been published in nine of the 16 States and three UTs where SIR is underway, and 13 States and UTs where the exercise was completed in the first two phases. In these States, including West Bengal where 27 lakh of the 60 lakh electors served notices were left out of the final roll, officials could not clear cases without hearings or documents. Over nine crore notices have been served in the second and the third phases so far.

EROs in Delhi could access the options from September 30, while the eight-minute video explaining the changes was shown to them at a meeting on Saturday (October 3, 2026). Sources said the same video is being shown to EROs in other States. It explains new options for generating notices without scheduling hearings and provides flexibility in disposing of cases where documents have not been submitted.

The EC has prescribed a list of 12 documents for electors served notices over “logical discrepancies” and “no mapping”.

According to the demonstration video recorded on October 1, as seen by The Hindu, in cases where a notice has been generated and the Booth Level Officer (BLO) has uploaded documents, the ERO can mark the elector “found OK” for inclusion in the final roll without uploading a hearing order.

Where no documents have been collected by the BLO, the ERO can still mark the elector eligible after uploading a hearing order and selecting the option “Proceed marking this elector as eligible without BLO documents”.

Earlier, a hearing order was required only to mark an elector as “found not eligible”, along with the reason for ineligibility.

For States where notices are yet to be generated, another option has been added at the notice-generating stage for electors in the draft roll categorised under “no mapping” and “logical discrepancies”: EROs can choose between "without hearing" and "with hearing".

The EC had said, in its September 26 release, that noticees need not visit centres for hearings and that BLOs would collect documents door-to-door. Hearings, it said, would be held online only in exceptional cases.

This option is of little use in States where all the notices have been generated. For instance, in Delhi, all 33.1 lakh notices issued carry the hearing venue and time. The notice phase there runs till November 30.

Where a hearing has already been scheduled, the new options allow an ERO to move an elector to the final roll without a hearing, provided either documents have been uploaded by the BLO or a hearing order by ERO.

While the new options let EROs clear notice cases faster, including those where documents are unavailable, based on their satisfaction, they still cannot reverse a case once an elector has been marked ineligible, officials said.

More than 350 electors in Delhi were marked “found ineligible”, prompting the Delhi CEO to caution EROs against choosing the option without proper verification, The Hindu reported on September 27.

The notice phase is under way in only nine States, with the final rolls in five of them set to be published later this month. The publication of Delhi’s final roll has been pushed to December 4, while those of Haryana, Maharashtra and Telangana are scheduled for November and Tripura’s for February 2027.

With this, the entire country would have undergone SIR, except Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh where the exercise is yet to be announced.

The Delhi CEO’s office and the EC did not respond to queries on why the options were introduced at this stage.

Some EROs are apprehensive about using the options at their discretion in the absence of a written instruction or order.

“Since SIR was announced, we have received a lot of instructions, some written and some oral. Many have since been taken back. For instance, we were told to identify ‘suspected foreigners’ along with Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate, and then, in the middle of the enumeration phase in Delhi, we were told not to identify or report such cases. Though, as per the RP Act, I am authorised to take decisions, SIR guidelines have been very different. I will wait for a written communication regarding the use of the new options,” an ERO, who did not wish to be named, told The Hindu.

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