Telengana, a state in southern India, has started the Geo-referencing of Electors Photo Identity Card (EPICs) and Vector mapping of the households, which includes integration, rationalization and geo-referencing of sections, door numbers and EPICs, that will comprehensively bring the entire electoral population of the state into its fold.
Earlier the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) used to enter the details of voters manually in the Electoral Roll. During the revision of Electoral Rolls, many discrepancies were noticed such as members of the same house were allotted in different Polling Stations, mistakes in the name and addresses and complaints from Political parties that many bogus voters were being registered from one residence and in some cases, no voters at all were registered from a particular residence. In order to eliminate all these inconsistencies, the Geo-referencing of EPICS and Door numbers and Vector Mapping of Telangana State has been taken up by the Election Commission.
Preparation of Vector map:
- A GIS based mobile application was developed to gather door numbers and EPICs. The BLOs captured the details of all the registered electors in their Rolls.
- The Vector map which was created comprised of polygon boxes representing each house or building.
- If a house color is orange on the map, it indicates “no entry has been made”.
- When the BLO adds the door number in the Data entry screen of the app, the Vector box denoting the house would change from orange to blue.
- Once he/she adds the EPIC number to the door number and saves the data, the property changes from blue to green.
- If any additional EPIC numbers have to be added, he/she would need to click on the ‘+’ sign. Multiple entries could be made if several people reside in the apartments of the same building.
- The data entered by the BLOs would be approved and finalized by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) before uploading.
The satellite image is downloaded using ArcGIS license and the downloaded image is converted into GEO TIFF. The app is developed using leaflet to render the maps, Leaflet connects to the Esri map services on a limited basis to display the map.
A geo-referenced map shall be developed covering the area using source maps and satellite imagery. Using this source map information/data can be captured/mapped during field survey. The satellite image shall be used and the KML of polling station, Assembly Constituency and District Boundaries as provided by the CEO office shall be superimposed on this image. The KML defines the boundary of the Polling station, Assembly Constituency and Districts within Telangana.
