Arrangements for smooth, organised holding of polls completed: ECP

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said on Wednesday that the commission has made all necessary logistic arrangements to ensure holding of the general election 2018, scheduled on July 25 in a smooth and an organized manner.

ECP spokesperson Altaf Khan said that the holding of elections which is considered to be a biggest logistic activity in the country required a comprehensive strategy to deal all matters related with the logistic support.

He informed, “The logistic exercises are of two kinds including sensitive and non-sensitive. Sensitive logistic exercise involves ballot papers while non-sensitive includes deployment of official staff, formation of District Monitoring Teams (DMT), bags, pens, indelible ink and stamps in bulk.”

Explaining the sensitive logistic exercise, the spokesperson said, it involved printing of ballot papers and import of the papers, used for ballot papers, from the United Kingdom and France.

Altaf Khan informed that it was estimated that the commission required 210 million of total ballot papers for the total constituencies of national and provincial assemblies.

Enlightening about the non-sensitive the ECP spokesperson said the commission was engaging the 750,000 work force from the federal and provincial departments to hold the upcoming polls. He said that the commission has arranged bags, pens, indelible ink and stamps in bulk.

It is pertinent to mention here that the process of printing of 220 million ballot papers for the general election 2018 would be completed by July 20. The commission had prepared a plan for dispatch of ballot papers to around 85,000 polling stations across the country well before the polling day.

The ballot papers would be dispatched to far-flung areas of Balochistan through aeroplanes. The paper being used for ballots carrying all security features was imported from abroad.

The process of transportation of ballot paper from Karachi was underway through C-130 planes, Pakistan International Airlines and trucks. Pakistan Army had been providing security to the Printing Corporation of Pakistan and other places during printing of the ballot papers.