Marathon training sessions held at West Bengal CEO’s office for SIR

Days ahead of the door-to-door survey of voters for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision in West Bengal, training of officials involved in the process was held at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) West Bengal.

During the training on Friday (October 31, 2025), technical officers from Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters in New Delhi were present where officials were trained on how to the BLOs (Booth Level Officials) will use a mobile application to fill in enumeration forms.

“A detailed training was held for EROs (Electoral Registration Officers) and AEROs (Assistant Electoral Registration Officers) was held virtually on how BLOs should operate a mobile application (BLO App) and fill enumeration. Over 3000 officials participated in the training across 24 districts of the State,” a source at the CEO office said. There are 294 EROs in the State corresponding to the number of Assembly constituencies.

According to officials, the BLO app designed to capture and digitise the data being submitted through enumeration forms. This training will be followed by training of BLOs and booth level agents (BLAs) — who are agents of political parties. The entire exercise will be completed before November 3 and from November 4, the BLOs will start door-to-door enumeration of voter lists on the basis of 2002 voter list.

About 80,681 BLOs have been appointed to execute the SIR exercise, along with 8,000 BLO supervisors, over 3,000 assistant electoral registration officers, 294 electoral registration officers. Officials at the CEO office also added that about 14,000 additional BLOs are being kept on standby on the assumption that there might be an increase in electors. Each polling booth caters to roughly 950 to 1,000 electors.

On Friday CEO WB Manoj Agarwal issued a video message detailing the stages of the SIR in the State. He added that interest of electors a helpline number 1950 has been set up where electors can reach out to BLOs directly. The new website of CEO is https://ceowestbengal.wb.gov.in .

During the SIR process in 12 States including poll bound West Bengal the house-to-house enumeration will take place for a month from November 4 to December 4, and the draft rolls will be published on December 9. Claims and objections can be raised from December 9 to January 8. Notices will be issued, and hearings and verifications will take place between December 9 and January 31.