Media urged to create awareness about voter registration

Work on preparing fresh voter list with photographs and national identity cards is going on at Sitakunda upazila headquarter amidst great enthusiasm among the eligible voters.
A total of 3486 people were registered as voter in the first two days of the enumeration that started on August 23, sources said.
District Election Office (DEO) with the cooperation of joint forces is conducting the voter registration in the upazila headquarter comprising nine wards.
Major General Md Abdul Mubeen, GOC of 24th Infantry Division, visited the upazila headquarter and a registration centre at Sitakunda Degree College yesterday to inspect the registration work.
He also addressed a view-exchanging meeting with officials involved in voter registration process and local representatives at the upazila headquarter.
Divisional Commissioner Hossain Jamil, Brigadier General Hasan Nasir, Lt Colonel Tofail Ahmed, Deputy Commissioner Ashraf Shamim and Upazila Nirbahi Officer Md Akhteruzzaman were present at the meeting.
Major General Mubeen called for completing the work successfully in the whole of Chittagong region with the close cooperation of all including government officials, joint forces, elected representatives, non-government organisations and general people.
He also urged both print and electronic media to play a vital role in creating awareness among the people about the project.
Around 81 field-level data collectors under the supervision of 18 supervisors, including teachers of high school and primary schools and assistant officials of upazila headquarter, are working in nine wards to collect data.
"We have already achieved around 43 percent works as our data collectors have collected data of 15000 people by going door to door, said M Akhteruzzaman, upazila nirbahi officer.
Major Mohammad Kamran, who has been supervising the technical support being provided by the army, termed the response of voters encouraging.
"If people continue to come spontaneously and timely to the centres for registration like the first two days, we would be able to complete the job within our dateline on September 7," he added.
Manjura Khatun, 30, of Chowdhurypara, expressed her joyous feeling to have a national ID for her.
She said her husband was hesitating to allow her for photograph, but the Imam of the local mosque convinced him.
Gyan Ranjan Nath, a supervisor, however said they faced problems in taking women's fingerprints on the registration forms and persuading them to come to the centre for digitised photographs.
Imams and local representatives played an effective role in this regard, he added.