Chief Electoral Officer Launches “Sahaj Bhilwara” App

• 24 Oct 2023

Why In News?

On October 23, 2023, ‘Sahaj Bhilwara’ app, developed as an innovation of Bhilwara District Election Officer, was launched by Rajasthan Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta.

Key Points:

• Through this app, the participation of the elderly in the age group of more than 80 years and more than 40 percent disabled category voters will be increased, and supervision of the voting process will be facilitated.
• Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta said during the app launch that the Election Commission of India, New Delhi is providing the facility of voting through postal ballot to senior citizens, especially abled people, Covid affected voters to ensure maximum voting in Rajasthan Assembly General Election 2023.
• Regarding the IT-based 'Sahaj Bhilwara' app developed for monitoring and effective supervision of the entire process related to home voting in Bhilwara district, he said that through this app, it will help in ensuring 100 percent participation of absentee voters of senior citizen and special eligible categories in Rajasthan Assembly General Elections 2023.
• This app will prove to be helpful for all the employees and officers related to the election like BLO, PO, RO etc. in the successful execution of their responsibilities.
• According to the instructions of the Election Commission of India, to make the election process smooth and simple, for the first time in the assembly general elections in the state, the initiative of home voting has been taken for senior citizens above 80 years of age and special eligible voters of more than 40 percent disabled category of the district.
• In these elections, eligible voters will get this facility as an option to go to the polling station and vote. As part of the innovation in Bhilwara district, this app will facilitate the supervision of the voting process by increasing the participation of the elderly in the age group of more than 80 years and voters with more than 40 percent disability.
• 'Sahaj Bhilwara' app has been launched as an innovation in Bhilwara district to facilitate and simplify the supervision of the voting process through Form 12D during the Assembly general elections.
• Features of 'Sahaj Bhilwara' App:
• Sahaj Bhilwara App is an IT application developed to help in better monitoring of 'home voting' for AVSC and AVPD voters.
• It will help the Returning Officer to fill out Form 12D, real-time monitoring of voting.
• For absentee voters, three separate logins have been provided for returning officer, polling officer and booth level officer involved in the entire process of voting.
• This application will not replace the process already being done by the Returning Officer, Polling Officer and Booth Level Officer at their level, but will facilitate the Returning Officer in monitoring the entire process.
• This application will help the Returning Officer to make a better action plan and it will also make the schedule and deployment of polling parties easier.
• The app also includes the facility to inform eligible 80+ elderly and differently abled voters about the date and time of voting through SMS. This will keep the voter aware when the polling party will come to their house for the voting process.
• At the level of BLO login, features like Form 12D details entry, filled in Form 12D along with voter's photograph, benchmark disability certificate, GPS location etc. have been included in the application.
• At the PO login level, polling party personnel can reach the voter's home using the GPS location facility provided in the app to reach the house of the absentee concerned voter and update the voting status on the Sahaj app.