Days after adding new options to its ERONET portal that allow Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to dispose of notice cases without hearings or documents, the Election Commission (EC) is now explaining the changes to officials through a demonstration video prepared by the Election Commission’s Information Technology (IT) Department, with no written documents circulated so far, sources told The Hindu .
With this, the entire country would have undergone SIR, except Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh where the exercise is yet to be announced. “Since SIR was announced, we have received a lot of instructions, some written and some oral. It explains new options for generating notices without scheduling hearings and provides flexibility in disposing of cases where documents have not been submitted. Many have since been taken back. Though, as per the RP Act, I am authorised to take decisions, SIR guidelines have been very different.
The three new options are available to EROs in the remaining 10 States and Union Territories (UTs) where the third phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is still under way, according to the video accessed by The Hindu. EROs in Delhi could access the options from September 30, while the eight-minute video explaining the changes was shown to them at a meeting on Saturday (October 3, 2026).
Sources said the same video is being shown to EROs in other States. For instance, we were told to identify ‘suspected foreigners’ along with Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate, and then, in the middle of the enumeration phase in Delhi, we were told not to identify or report such cases. I will wait for a written communication regarding the use of the new options,” an ERO, who did not wish to be named, told The Hindu.
The EC had said, in its September 26 release, that noticees need not visit centres for hearings and that BLOs would collect documents door-to-door.
As seen by The Hindu , in cases where a notice has been generated and the Booth Level Officer (BLO) has uploaded documents, the ERO can mark the elector “found OK” for inclusion in the final roll without uploading a hearing order, according to the demonstration video recorded on October 1. Hearings, it said, would be held online only in exceptional cases. including those where documents are unavailable, based on their satisfaction, they still cannot reverse a case once an elector has been marked ineligible, officials said While the new options let EROs clear notice cases faster.
