Karwar (DHNS): The district administration is busy making hectic arrangements for the polling to assembly elections slated to be held on May 10.

The administration in Uttara Kannada has started the process of ferrying Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) procured at the EVM Warehouse at Mudigere in Karwar to all six assembly constituencies.

As the elections were round the corner, the ECI supplied as many as 1,724 ballot units & control units and 1,869 VVPATs to the district which were stocked at EVM Warehouse at Mudigeri under tight security.

Engineers working for a private firm in Hyderabad were given the responsibility by the ECI to check all the EVMs and keep them ready for polling.

Accordingly, the engineers have inspected all EVMs for the last 15 days. As the polling day is nearing, the engineers on Wednesday and Thursday conducted second round of checking before giving clearance to shift them to the respective polling stations.

Under tight police security, the EVMs were ferried to mustering centers at Karwar, Kumta, Bhatkal, Haliyal, Sirsi and Yellapur.

The checking of EVMs was held under the guidance of election officer and assistant election officer and later shifted to mustering centers wherein strong rooms have been set up.

Mock voting

The staff at the EVM warehouse said that to inspect the functioning of the EVMs, mock polling of 96 votes was conducted in the first phase. During the second phase, the voting was increased to 1,200. All these process has been done under the vigilance of poll officials and in the presence of political party leaders.

Additional district election officer Raju Mogaveer said that the EVMs have been shifted to respective mustering center under police security and have been procured in strong room.

After the filing of nomination papers and withdrawal is completed, the poll officials will transport the EVMs to respective polling booths, he said.