The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Assam, Nitin Khade on Saturday informed that the process of linking of Aadhaar details with voter ID in the state will begin from August 1.

Addressing the media at a conference at the office of the deputy commissioner of Kamrup metropolitan district, The Assam CEO said that people will not have to wait for January 1 for any new registrations or updates to the state electoral list as it was earlier.

Khade said, “From now on, people will not have to wait for January 1 for new entries or any updates to the state voter list. It will be updated four times every year so the people will get more chances to do so.”

He then said, “Updations will happen on January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1 over the year.”

Meanwhile, the linking of Aadhaar card with the voter card in the state will begin from August, the electoral officer said.

However, it will not be made mandatory to link Aadhaar details to Voter ID, the senior official added, saying that this will only be done to identify duplicate entries in the voter list.

“People who do not have Aadhaar cards will have to use other documents for the process of linking. For this, we have determined 11 different documents,” said Khade.

The Assam CEO informed that the documents that will be accepted for this include driving license, passport and bank details, among others.

Moreover, the youth of the state will be able to apply for new registration to the voter list from the age of 17. They will be able to apply after every three months, informed Khade.

It may be noted that the process for applying for updation happened only once a year on January 1. Salaried employees will also get some special facilities.

The Assam CEO further mentioned that the application form for new registrations will be changed a little in light of the linking process set to begin from August 1.

The state electoral body aims to complete the entire process in online mode. In this regard, voters will be assisted by block level officers.

Khade further informed that the form number six will be used for new applicants, while for name updation, form number eight will be used and form number seven will be for name deletion.

The process of demarcation of polling stations will start from November 4. A polling station will be set up at every two kilometer interval, the senior official informed.

In addition, Khade said that the final voter list will be published on January 5.