Telangana SIR: 94 lakh electors to be verified by 119 officers in just 60 days

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Telangana has hit a critical phase, with nearly 94 lakh electors requiring personal verification before Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) within a span of just 60 days. The situation has arisen due to incomplete door-to-door visits and widespread errors in filling enumeration forms, according to officials.

The SIR was designed to update and cleanse the electoral rolls, with Booth Level Officers (BLOs) instructed to make three visits to every household — first to distribute forms, second to explain how to fill them, and third to collect the completed forms. However, in many localities, BLOs did not follow this procedure. Instead of going house to house, they often sat at central locations, distributing and collecting forms without providing the necessary guidance.

The enumeration forms themselves had three sections: the first for details as recorded in the final electoral rolls of the 2002 SIR, the second for relatives' details for those who were minors in 2002, and the third for current details. Many voters, unsure of the format, entered their current details from their Voter ID cards in the first section, leaving out crucial fields such as polling station and part numbers. This led to a massive number of improperly filled forms.

According to official sources, more than 32 lakh electors fall into the "unmapped" category, meaning they failed to provide their 2002 details or their parents' details from that year. Additionally, a total of 61.4 lakh logical discrepancies or anomalies were detected in the forms that were returned. When combined, these categories account for nearly 94 lakh electors, all of whom will now need to be served notices and appear for hearings before their respective EROs.

The timeline is stark: draft rolls are to be published on August 17, 2026, and the notice and hearing period runs until October 15, 2026. That leaves exactly 60 days for the EROs to complete the process. Even if all notices are dispatched within the first fortnight, the remaining 45 days present an enormous challenge. With only 119 EROs available to hear cases, the workload is astronomically high. If the EROs were to work non-stop, each elector would receive less than a minute of the officer's time. Under a realistic eight-hour workday, accounting for weekends and holidays, the time available per elector would be just 16 to 28 seconds.

To put this in perspective, giving each elector a minimal 15-minute hearing would require seven to eight years of continuous work by all 119 EROs, assuming maximum rigour and no delays. This is an impossible task within the prescribed time frame.

Moreover, the EROs are not only dealing with verification hearings. They must also settle claims and objections, and accept fresh applications from electors who may have been deleted from the rolls. The burden is not evenly distributed across constituencies; some EROs will face a far greater number of cases than others, even with support from Assistant Electoral Registration Officers.

The enumeration phase was previously extended twice in a bid to improve the response rate, but the quality of data remains a serious concern. Officials had initially insisted that the three-visit schedule was mandatory, yet the targets were evidently unrealistic for the BLOs, who were responsible for covering large populations in limited time. As a result, the responsibility shifted to the electors to return the forms on their own, without the promised assistance.

The implications of this verification backlog are significant. If the hearings are not conducted properly, many eligible voters could lose their names from the electoral rolls, effectively disenfranchising them. Civil society groups have already expressed concern about the feasibility of the timeline and its potential impact on the democratic process. The coming months will test the capacity and vigilance of the electoral machinery in Telangana to ensure that no citizen is unfairly removed from the voter list.