Election Commission to link voter card with Aadhaar

In a move to weed out the bogus voters from the data base, the Election Commission of India is all set to link Aadhaar Card with the Elector’s Photo Identity Card.

“Presently there are over 84 crore voter IDs in India, while the number of voter cards are 74 crore. There is difference of over 10 crore voter cards, which could be bogus or duplicate,” pointed out H.S. Bhrama, Election Commissioner of India, here on Saturday.

He continued, “This project will be taken up simultaneously in all 676 districts of the country starting from March 1, 2015, and be completed by August 15, 2015.”

The project to link EPIC with Aadhaar card is being taken up as the latter has been taken up more effectively in the country.

Mr Bhrama said that only the EPIC card would be the base for voting not Aadhaar card.

However, he said that this doesn't mean that voters would not be allowed to cast votes without Aadhar. "The list of ID cards that one must carry to the polling booth remains the same. But this will help identify duplicate cards in circulation on a particular voter's name or address," he said. He also said that the commission is aware of the fact that there could places like the dacoit-infested Madhya Pradesh, inaccessible locations in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir where there could be some without Aadhar cards and the process would be slow.

"We have urged state governments to speed up the process of issuing Aadhar cards so that linking with EPIC would also get a boost," Brahma said.