Odisha completes Special Intensive Revision preparations, polling booth count rises to 43,000

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Odisha entered its final stage, with preparatory work now complete and a significant increase recorded in the number of polling booths across the state. The total number of polling stations has risen from around 36,000 to 43,000 following the addition of 7,000 new booths, officials said.

The development is part of a wider exercise aimed at strengthening electoral infrastructure and ensuring smoother implementation of the revision process, reportedly.

Booth Numbers Increased 

Sharing details of the preparations, Additional Chief Electoral Officer and Special Secretary Sushanta Kumar Mishra said the groundwork for SIR began nearly five months ago. He said the rationalisation and expansion of polling infrastructure was taken up as a priority task during this period.

“All Booth Level Officers have been identified and appointed, and they have already begun their work,” he said, adding that ensuring manpower readiness was a key component of the preparation.

Data Analysis Posed Initial Challenge

Mishra said the analysis and conversion of older electoral data, particularly from the 2002 revision exercise, was one of the more challenging aspects of the process. However, he noted that the task was completed effectively as part of the preparatory phase.

He said work on polling centres was taken up first, followed by a review of legacy data to ensure accuracy and compliance with current requirements.

Official Statement On SIR Preparation

Explaining the process in detail, Additional CEO Sushanta Mishra said, “The preparatory activities to implement SIR have been going on for quite some time now. We started this exercise five months ago and a lot was done during this period. The first thing that we did was rationalisation of the police stations, there are more than 36,000 police stations in Odisha. So, we added another 7,000 police stations, taking the number to around 44,000 police stations.”

He further said, “For that, we have already identified the BLOs and appointed them, which was a major activity that we already completed as a preparation for SIR. Another major activity was converting the data of the 2002 SIR electoral rules.”