Kottayam gets ready for Assembly polls

Kottayam: The district administration has made elaborate preparations for the May 16 assembly elections and 11, 247 employees belonging to the state and central governments and public sector units are on duty at 1,411 polling booths across the district. This includes 5,196 state government employees, 152 central government employees, 3,677 employees in the government aided sectors, 1,625 employees in the public sector undertakings and 621 bank employees.

The district administration has deployed 2, 942 security forces. The polling stations were specially equipped for the disabled with a Braille facility. Among the 1,411 polling booths, the ramp facility is there at 1,406 polling booths. The voting time is from 7 am to 6 pm. They have identified 31 locations in the district as sensitive and 14 booths as critical booths. Additional police officers will be deputed at the sensitive places., whereas there will be webcast at the critical booths along with additional police presence.

The election commission had deputed three general observers and one expenditure observer in the district. Women police officers will be in charge of the security of twenty polling booths. There will be 31 flying squad vehicles, 27, statistics surveillance team, 18 video team and nine video viewing team for monitoring the election-related activities.