New RCC list has 21,564 less voters than last year's

In Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) 2,52,564 have been photographed and recorded as voters. The number of voters in the new list is less by 21,564 than in the list prepared by the Election Commission last year.
Officials involved with the registration task said at least 2,74,128 voters were registered in 2006.
Lt Col Taher, Rajshahi coordinator of the task for preparing national identity card and voter list with photograph, said many eligible voters could not register as educational institutes including Rajshahi University and Rajshahi University of Engineering and Technology were closed during the task.
"Moreover, the list prepared in 2006 had many voters from outside the Rajshahi City Corporation. This time following awareness campaigns people got themselves registered in their own areas," he said at the conclusion ceremony of the voter listing task at the conference room of the deputy commissioner's office Thursday evening.
Rajshahi Deputy Commissioner Khalilur Rahman, Acting RCC Mayor Rezaunnabi Dudu, and Rajshahi Election Officer Syed Mohammad Musa were present at the programme.
The national ID cards will be prepared after rechecking the data of the registered voters. Assistant registration officers and enumerators will visit door to door to recheck the information.
About 45,000 national ID cards have been prepared and those will be handed over to the district administration. The cards will be distributed through the assistant registration officers and ward commissioners.
Although the task for registering voters has completed, those who have been left out can still register their names.
The main computer server at the Terokhadia divisional stadium army camp will remain open for 15 days from today and data-entry operators and other officials will register voters and correct mistakes in the national ID cards.
The Election Commission with direct assistance of the army started the task of preparing the voter roll in RCC on August 11. Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed formally inaugurated the programme on August 14.
The task of preparing voter list with photographs and national ID cards will begin in Paba upazila on September 11 although data collection by enumerators had already begun at Nawhata under the upazila.
The national ID cards will carry name of the registered person, their parents' names, date of birth, ID number, photo, signature, address, blood group, and a bar code encrypted with personal data.
The bar code will prevent duplicating of the ID cards, said officials, adding that computer software will also detect persons who try to register twice.
A body of 908 enumerators, 182 supervisors and 30 assistant registration officers worked for the task in Rajshahi city and they will also help in the task in other areas.
In the registration process 540 trained data entry operators divided into 37 groups were engaged using 250 laptops, high resolution web cameras and digital fingerprint readers.