Kolkata, March 19, 2019

 

With countdown started for General Election to the 17^th Lok Sabha, Election Commission of India has taken a number of citizen centric initiatives to enable the voters to cast their polls smoothly in a hassle-free manner. A major step taken for the voters is start of an all-purpose, round the clock link with the citizen-voters in the form of toll-free helpline number 1950. Callers can enquire on subjects such as elections, their personal information details in the electoral roll, EPIC, voting dates planned for them, their BLO, parliamentary constituency and polling station, registering as PWD voter, online registration, roll revision and also to lodge a complaint. A mobile app called ‘Voter Helpline’ has also been launched with the same objective of providing elector services. Calls can be made to 1950 through this Voter Helpline mobile app also.  The portal www.nvsp.in can also be used for these above purposes. Presently in the election season, this helpline has been made operational on all days of the week including holidays and Sundays. This All-India helpline number 1950 has been shared in the homepages of all state CEOs’ website so as to connect with more and more voters.

 

When a citizen calls 1950, the call lands up at the district contact centre from where the call centre agent helps the voter to get the latest information and also to redress their grievances. The person will be greeted in the language of the district. Voters can also call up any district across India by prefixing 1950 with the STD code. All District Contact Centres have uniform Standard Operating Procedure, similar FAQ and access to NVSP and ERONET. Thus every citizen will get the same answer from wherever he may call. The CEO Office has State Contact Centre with a toll-free number whose primary job is to monitor 1950, take escalated calls, calls pertaining to CEO office and work as a control room during election times. DEOs also have a complaint redressal mechanism. Complaints registered by making calls to the toll-free number 1950 or on the website are taken up.  Complainants can also see the details of the action taken on their complaints.

 

This round the clock citizen service provides features enabling citizens to obtain electoral services as per their requirement and acts as an important link between the Electoral Machinery & Citizens. Notably, this helpline number was launched in 2011 and was changed from the earlier number ‘1965’ to ‘1950’ because the Commission was constituted in year 1950 on January 25.

 

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CG/SC

(Release ID: 1569086)