5.34% voters left unmapped in Odisha’s electoral roll revision process

Odisha has successfully mapped 3.16 crore of its 3.33 crore registered voters—covering 94.6 per cent of the electorate—under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while 5.34 per cent of voters are yet to be mapped, said Senior Deputy Election Commissioner of India Gyanesh Bharati on Tuesday while reviewing the SIR’s progress in the State.

During the review, election officials informed that Odisha had around 3.33 crore voters before the commencement of the SIR exercise. Of these, 3.16 crore voters, accounting for 94.6 per cent, have been successfully mapped, while only 5.34 per cent remain unmapped.

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As of June 16, nearly 99.2 per cent of enumeration forms had been distributed across the state, with 46.44 per cent of the forms already digitized. Sundargarh district emerged as the best-performing district in both form distribution and digitization.

Bharati held separate discussions with District Collectors and District Election Officers from nine districts, reviewing the pace of form distribution, digitization and challenges affecting implementation. Additional CEO Sushant Kumar Mishra presented a detailed overview of the SIR process through a PowerPoint presentation.

Expressing satisfaction over the progress made so far, the Deputy Election Commissioner directed officials to complete the exercise ahead of schedule and ensure that no eligible voter is left out of the electoral rolls.

To accelerate the revision process, the state has imposed restrictions on the transfer and posting of officials engaged in SIR-related work. The Election Department has also appointed 275 additional Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) and established hearing camps to address claims and objections from voters.

According to officials, 31 District Election Officers, 147 Electoral Registration Officers and 994 Assistant Electoral Registration Officers have been deployed for the successful implementation of SIR-2026. Help desks have also been set up at the CEO and district levels to assist voters and address grievances.

Although June 28 is the deadline for submission of enumeration forms, Chief Electoral Officer R.S. Gopalan directed the collectors of the nine reviewed districts to complete the process by June 23-24.

Bharati, who is on a two-day visit to Odisha, reviewed the progress in Bhubaneswar on the first day of his visit. He is scheduled to visit Ganjam district on Wednesday to assess field-level implementation of the electoral roll revision exercise.