ANGRY & SHOCKED

ANGRY & SHOCKED
Software Errors And Employees Lacking Technical Knowhow Lead To Howlers In Photo ID Cards
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: Lakshminarayana spent an entire day searching for the venue where Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) were scheduled to be issued. Srivatsa’s parents went through a rigmorole to pick up their cards, as they were sent to the Tahsildar. At Yelahanka New Town centre, over 100 voters were at the mercy of just one laptop and a camera. Needless to say, the queues were serpentine, the citizens restless.
If you thought the voters’ list was a bag of bloomers, then the EPICs are no better. Ages, names, genders and addresses are all messed up. Worse, these errors occur right in front of your eyes. But there is precious little you can do because not in all cases can corrections be made on the card. Interestingly, at some centres, the employees lacked technical knowhow and computer literates among the voters had to came to the rescue and fix the laptops!
These are just the preliminaries. Voters who obtained the EPIC recently have many more shockers to deliver. Prakash lives on 36th cross, Jayanagar 5th block, but the voter ID card states his address as 6th main. Prasad, a Vijayanagar resident, is 69 years old but the data shows his age as 72; his house number is 21, but is listed as 212!
“I lost half-a-day on Monday and half-a-day on Tuesday searching for the venue. Despite wasting a day, I was unable to get the voter ID done for my daughter,’’ fumed Domlur resident S Lakshminarayana.
In several cases, even the helpline numbers proved useless. “I have spoken to not less than eight electoral officers to find the venue, only to be told dayamadi neeve hudukikolli saar (please find it yourself, sir). Not one person was ready to answer properly,’’ Laksminarayana added.
M K Srivatsa, a resident of Yelahanka New Town, explains the sorry state of affairs in a EPIC distribution centre. Interestingly, Srivatsa, a computer literate, fixed the problems, as the employees were unable to get the computers going. “Over 100 people had queued up by 8.30 am at the school. Everything was in a mess. A few local people had to help with extension chords to get power supply from the neighbouring building. The employees lacked knowhow of the software too.’’
To cater to over 10,000 voters, only one laptop and a webcam was installed. Even worse, Srivatsa’s parents - Krishnamurthy and Kanakaprabha — were asked to meet the Tahsildar when they went to get the cards submitted for a change in address. They were told the cards have been locked and were directed to approach Tahsildar. Since Krishnamurthy and Kanakaprabha were residing at Mangalore they had surrendered their cards when they shifted to Bangalore.
While the issue of election ID cards to voters is understandably a mammoth exercise, three key problems have surfaced in the process — error-prone data base, transliteration errors and software problems in editing and registering data.
There are three points at which errors can occur — when people give the data, when the data is being filled into the forms that electoral officials bring to the doorstep and when that data is transferred to the computer. It is unlikely that educated people would give wrong data about themselves. Even if there is a margin of error there, the number of errors while writing the data on forms and typing it into computers seem to be higher.
How do the errors occur? While filling in forms or transfering data , language and translation problems occur. For instance, the name Pradeep is Pradeep in English and Pradeepa in Kannada! If the Kannada version is taken, then it gets retained as Pradeepa in English too! It depends on how the data has been written or entered. If the electoral official records it as Pradeepa in Kannada, then the person typing it onto the computer may record it by the same name in English. How it gets registered in the first instance is crucial. Even then there is no guarantee that the person keying it in on the computer won’t commit a mistake. Assuming the person has given the right data, errors will have to be checked at the time of registering the name.
The other problem relates to software. Why doesn’t the software register changes in year of birth for instance? If the data on the computer indicates 1967 and needs to be changed to 1966, it can’t be done as the software doesn’t accept changes in age or address. Yet, the cards are issued with the errors.
When a voter called up the operations manager of Macro Infotech, the company to which issue of ID cards has been outsourced, and explained that he had been given a faulty card, the manager said: “Use the card now. In June when we issue cards again based on revised rolls, you can get it corrected.”
OFFICIAL SPEAK
Bangalore electoral officer B S Ramprasad admitted that there are some hiccups in issuing identity cards, while in some areas intermittent power supply has been affecting it. “However, the voters can cast their vote even if they don’t have photo identity card. Since the election date has been announced, there is a rush for the cards. The problems have been appraised to the Chief Election Commission and authorities of Macro Infotech have been asked to increase the issuing points,’’ he said. Issue of EPIC would be on till May 5. A three-month drive will be carried out after polls to ensure 100% distribution.
MACRO INFOTECH
“We were asked to issue EPIC at a short notice and had to obey the directions of the Election Commission. Our staff are not adequately trained in the software. However, we are interacting with resident welfare associations to sort out the issues. People are requested to cooperate with the personnel.
We are also planning to increase our efficiency,’’ said manager of Macro Tech R Rangarajan.