A two-day training programme for 12 electoral registration officer (ERO), 217 booth level officer (BLO) and two district election officer (DEO) from West Bengal commenced on Wednesday by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

This initiative is part of a broader training plan for the capacity augmentation of grassroots election functionaries as envisaged by the Commission during the CEO’s Conference held at India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM) on March 4.

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Additionally, the ECI concluded a one-day Orientation Programme for Media Nodal Officers, Social Media Nodal Officers, and District Public Relations Officers on Wednesday in which officers from 28 States and 8 UTs participated in it.

The aim of the training is to develop an effective communication strategy to ensure proactive information dissemination, counter misinformation, and promote voter awareness through various media platforms, in accordance with the legal framework.

In his address, CEC Gyanesh Kumar while acknowledging the pivotal role of media as a key stakeholder in the electoral process emphasized the importance of factual, timely and transparent communication in upholding the trust of voters in the electoral processes in a digitally mediated information world.

He underlined that media officers must be proactive in communicating accurate information and rise to the challenge of ensuring that voters are correctly informed and empowered to discern facts from narratives without factual basis.