Jaipur : In order to make the election process more inclusive and easier, Rajasthan Election Department has created a new facility called 'Postal Buddy' for management of postal ballots. Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Gupta launched this facility, a web portal, for the Lok Sabha General Elections 2024.
Addressing the media on the occasion of launch of 'Postal Buddy', on 21st March, 2024, Gupta said that this facility was for online monitoring of the entire process of postal ballots. From receiving of applications for postal ballot onwards to actual polling by the voter and then issuance of Election Duty Certificate (EDC), all the steps are monitored to ease out the process. Postal Buddy would add to the success of 'No Voter is Left Out' campaign of the election department, he said.
The CEO said that the portal would benefit the personnel engaged in essential services during elections, the elderly and disabled voters eligible for home voting as well as the electors employed in election work. Different stages the postal ballot passes through, could be tracked through this portal easily, that too in real-time. In case of mismatch of data of a ballot or any mistake at any stage in the process, it would be easy to catch the problem and resolve it, he added. Using this facility, the EDC could also be issued easily.
According to Gupta, to make the process of postal ballots error-free and more effective, National Informatics Centre, Ganganagar prepared this portal. After receiving the application forms in 12, 12A and 12D formats for postal ballot, the information is entered into the portal. Thereafter, the officials of the Postal Ballot cell monitor these applications passing through various stages online till the actually polling is done and the EDC issued to the electors carrying out election work.
By now, 3,641 elderly voters aged 85 years and above age along with 948 PwD voters submitted their forms for Home Voting, whose details have been uploaded at the Postal Buddy portal. Of the voters engaged in election duty, details of 2,74,836 have been uploaded at the portal, out of which 1,94,742 forms have been scrutinized as well. In all, more than 4.5 lakh voters would be benefited by this facility.
On Postal Buddy portal, the entire process and operations could be monitored at the level of Chief Electoral Officer, District Electoral Officer and Returning Officer.
