Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (MD)

Mangaluru, Mar 31: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has launched a National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) in collaboration with C-DAC under the mission mode project for authenticating, purifying and linking Aadhaar with the electoral roll. The objective is to make electoral roll cent percent error-free and free from multiple entries.

To bring the above facts to the notice of general public in the region, a press meet was called by deputy commissioner (DC) A B Ibrahim on Tuesday March 31 at his office here.

Addressing the media, DC Ibrahim said that the project will be completed by July 30, 2015.

"To link the Aadhaar card with EPIC number one can send message through mobile phone as:-  to 51969 or 166. If anybody wants to complete the task online, then people can go to National Voters Services Portal website (nvsp.in).

"People who are unable to link the Aadhaar through SMS or online can do so by submitting the hard copy of their name, EPIC number, Aadhaar number and date of submission. For any kind of assistance on linking the Aadhaar card with EPIC, one can contact customer care on 1950," the DC said.

"The main objective is to cleanse the photo electoral rolls by weeding out bogus, duplicate and voters who have shifted base. It is also for identification of unregistered eligible voters and issuance of fresh EPICs for saturation of electoral rolls, and to make shifting of voters from one place to another easier without creating duplicates," he added.

"Hard copies can be submitted or filled at panchayat secretary office, additional deputy commissioner's office, Mangalore City Corporation or at tahsildar's office," he said.

Additional deputy commissioner Sadashiva Prabhu said, "It is not compulsory to link the Aadhaar with the EPIC number, as some people do not have Aadhaar card yet. Nearly 80% of the general public has Aadhaar card. The main intention is to wipe out mistakes in the voter's id and to remove all duplicate voters."

He added, "There is also a need to link the electorate with mobile numbers and email addresses so that 'one time password' (OTP) based facilities of correction of errors or change of address, sending mobile-based slips may easily be possible in the future and election related information may be sent to the voters from time to time."

To link your Aadhaar card with your EPIC, SMS:  to 51969 or 166, or log on to nvsp.in.