Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 14: To sensitize different stakeholders involved in Election Expenditure Monitoring for the Lok Sabha Election 2014, Chief Electoral Officer, Umang Narula today chaired a high level meeting of Police authorities, Bankers, Income Tax and Excise Departments.
IGP, Technical Services PHQ H.K. Lohia, Excise Commissioner Vineeta Gupta, Deputy Director, Investigation, Income Tax Department R.K. Gubgotra, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Rashpal Singh and representatives of different banks attended the meeting.
Deliberating upon mechanism for expenditure monitoring, the CEO said election related expenditure monitoring is a focused area and the Election Commission of India has issued set of instructions to be followed for the purpose, adding that strict monitoring of expenditure as per the guidelines of the commission has to be done at all levels.
He said multi agency joint efforts have to be put in to ensure transparent monitoring and strict adherence to the directions of the Commission. Expenditure monitoring teams comprising of a magistrate, police representative and videography team have already started working at different levels all across the state, he added.
It was informed that Election Commission of India has appointed nodal officers in different departments of the state for election expenditure monitoring in the Lok Sabha election 2014. IGP H.K. Lohia is nodal officer in the police department, Excise Commissioner Vineeta Gupta is nodal officer in the excise department, Deputy Director, Investigation R.K. Gubgotra is nodal officer in the Income Tax department and Dy CEO Rishpal Singh is nodal officer in the Chief Electoral Office.
While interacting with bankers, Narula said each candidate has to open a bank account and the same has to be mentioned in the affidavit while filling the nomination form. The role of bank is crucial as every suspicious transaction above Rs 10 lakh has to be reported to the concerned District Election Officer, he added.
He stressed for strict abiding of the SOP for ATM vans and procedure to be adopted for maintaining accounts of election expenses by the contesting candidates.
Meanwhile, CEO interacted with Director General (DG), Election Commission of India (ECI), Akshay Raut through a Video Conference and informed that about 3.5 lakh first time voters are going to exercise their right to franchise in Jammu and Kashmir in the Lok Sabha Elections.
During the Video Conference, the DG ECI was apprised about the activities being carried out under Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) and overall poll preparedness in the State.
District Election Officers of all districts of the State also participated in the Video Conference from their respective headquarters.
The CEO said that State and district SVEEP committees have been constituted and the SVEEP State Plan has also been rolled out from March 1, 2014.He informed that as many as 253 Campus Ambassadors have been appointed in different Colleges and Universities of the State.
The DG(ECI) laid stress on creating mass awareness with special focus on women and young eligible voters. He said that maximum participation of women and newly registered voters would help record high voter turnout in the state.
Later, the CEO also sought the cooperation of functionaries of Education, Social Welfare, Information, Health and Medical Education, Higher Education, State Cultural Academy, Labour& Employment and Youth Sports and Services departments, All India Radio, National Cadets Corps and J&K Bank in spreading awareness about the importance of casting vote among the voters.
The meeting was attended by Secretary, School Education Hirdesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Social Welfare M S Rather, Secretary, J&K Academy Art Culture and Language, Director Information Tasaduq Jeelani, besides representatives of all other departments.
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