Delhi’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has entered a faster but more consequential phase: the cases of 20 lakh electors, more than 60% of the 33 lakh who received notices, had been resolved by Monday, according to the office of the Delhi Chief Electoral Officer. The figure signals administrative acceleration, but it also reveals the scale of the exercise facing a city where migration, demolition, homelessness, duplication and outdated records can make proving eligibility difficult.
The final electoral rolls are scheduled to be published on December 4, while the disposal of notices and objections can continue until November 30. The deadline has already been revised for the fourth time, according to the report. That extended timetable matters because the process is not simply a back-office correction of names. It determines which residents will appear on the final electoral roll and which cases will be rejected after verification.
The numbers show how sharply the exercise has altered the apparent size and composition of Delhi’s electorate. Before the SIR began on June 30, Delhi had around 1.45 crore electors. The draft electoral roll published on August 31 contained 97.5 lakh names. Around 47.5 lakh electors—almost one-third of the pre-SIR total—were classified as “uncollectible” after Booth-Level Officers found them absent, moved, deceased or listed through duplicate entries.
Among those included in the draft roll, around 33.1 lakh electors, or nearly 34%, received notices requiring them to provide proof of eligibility for inclusion in the final roll. Of these, 13.79 lakh were marked because they could not link themselves to the electoral roll from the last SIR in 2002. Another 19.33 lakh were flagged for what the authorities described as “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration forms.
These categories point to a distinctly urban administrative problem. A resident’s electoral identity is connected not only to citizenship and eligibility, but also to whether government records can follow a person through changes of address, informal housing, displacement and family movement. In a city with substantial residential churn, a record that appears inconsistent to an administrative system may reflect mobility rather than deliberate ineligibility. The supplied data does not establish how many notices arose from each kind of urban movement, but it shows that the verification burden was distributed across a very large population.
The first month of disposal was relatively slow. Only around four lakh notices had been resolved by September 29, after the draft rolls were published. In the following 12 days, approximately 16 lakh notices were disposed of—an average of about 1.33 lakh a day. The CEO’s office attributed the faster pace to relaxed procedures, the involvement of more officials and strict targets for Booth-Level Officers, who serve as grassroots custodians of the roll for each polling station.
The change in speed followed a series of procedural decisions by the Election Commission of India. Initially, electors flagged in most constituencies had to attend hearings at the local Electoral Registration Officer’s office at a designated time and submit one of 13 prescribed documents. On September 26, the Commission announced that electors issued notices for “logical discrepancies” or for being “unmapped” would no longer have to attend hearings at the local office. Booth-Level Officers could instead visit homes to collect documents.
Online hearing facilities were strengthened, and family members were allowed to appear on behalf of electors who had received notices. The portal used by Electoral Registration Officers was also changed. Since September 30, officers have been able to dispose of notices without conducting a hearing when a Booth-Level Officer’s letter confirms satisfaction with the elector’s details.
The administrative architecture was expanded as well. On September 24, the number of Assistant Electoral Registration Officers—many of whom are school principals and are empowered to dispose of notices—increased from 297 to 902. Special camps have been organised every weekend since September 20, with some directed at groups identified as particularly vulnerable, including homeless people, those displaced by demolitions, transgender people and sex workers.
This is where the SIR becomes more than a statistical exercise. The same urban conditions that make electoral records difficult to maintain can also make it difficult for residents to respond to notices. A person displaced by a demolition may not have a stable address. A homeless resident may be difficult for officials to reach through conventional household visits. A sex worker or transgender resident may face barriers in approaching a government office. The CEO’s office has responded with camps and awareness campaigns, but the report does not provide figures on how many vulnerable electors have been reached or how many cases among these groups have been accepted or rejected.
The move from office-based hearings to house-to-house document collection changes the relationship between the administration and the elector. Instead of requiring every flagged resident to navigate an office appointment, it places a greater part of the verification process in the hands of local officials. That can reduce travel and procedural burdens, particularly for residents with limited time, mobility or documentation. It also makes the quality and consistency of field-level verification more important, because the Booth-Level Officer’s report can now support disposal without a formal hearing.
The pressure on this local system is visible in the daily targets. Officials said Booth-Level Officers had been asked to conduct at least 10 hearings each day. Some officers told The Indian Express that disposals had become faster as they became more familiar with the online portal. The report also attributes the quicker pace to the increase in officials and the simplification of procedures. Together, these details suggest that administrative capacity—not only the number of disputed records—has been a central factor in determining how quickly cases move.
The figures also show why speed alone cannot be treated as the main measure of success. The 20 lakh resolved cases include electors whose details were verified for inclusion in the final roll as well as cases that were rejected. A higher disposal rate therefore indicates that cases have been processed, not that all affected electors have been retained. The decisive public-interest question is the composition of the final roll after the remaining notices and objections are considered.
The revised process has attempted to widen access through online hearings, family representation, weekend camps, house visits and public communication. Awareness campaigns have used hoardings, radio jingles, advertisements and announcements on the Delhi Metro. The CEO offices of at least eight other states and Union Territories—Jharkhand, Mizoram, Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Puducherry, Uttarakhand and Gujarat—have also reported proactive campaigns and special camps to ensure that eligible voters are not left out.
That wider administrative response indicates that the challenges seen in Delhi are not necessarily confined to one city. The supplied report does not establish whether the other states face the same scale of notices, the same categories of discrepancies or the same change in disposal rates. It does show, however, that electoral authorities are treating outreach, camps and booth-level intervention as necessary parts of roll revision rather than relying only on residents to approach offices.
For Delhi, the next stage will determine whether the faster process produces a final roll that is both more accurate and accessible to eligible residents. The evidence currently confirms a dramatic increase in the pace of disposal, a large reduction between the pre-SIR electorate and the draft roll, and a procedural shift towards field verification and assisted access. It does not yet establish how many of the 20 lakh resolved cases were accepted, how many were rejected, or how many electors still require assistance.
The remaining period before the November 30 deadline for disposal and objections, followed by publication of the final rolls on December 4, will therefore be critical. The final figures, including the number of retained names, rejected cases and unresolved objections, will show whether the administrative expansion succeeded in correcting the roll without leaving eligible but difficult-to-document urban residents outside it.
