District magistrate Ajay Chauhan said direct net-casting from 50 stations would be watched by senior officials and the Election Commission functionaries including observers.

Technical teams have been constituted which will oversee the operation and the BSNL told to provide broad-band connectivity. The whole exercise would be recorded on CDs which will be kept at the district headquarters.

Chauhan said every activity of the supervisory staff and the agents would be recorded.

The Poll Day Monitoring system through SMS network is already in place after field trials.

District magistrate Ajay Chauhan said, "The system is simple, practical and will ensure communication of important inputs from the field for speedy decision-making. The heads of poll parties will continuously keep sending departure, arrival reports at the booths, percentage of polling every two hours and other information relevant to the conduct of the polling." Chauhan has instructed all ROs, AROs, sector magistrates, booth-level officials to register their mobile numbers on the central monitoring number.

Use of information technology has helped save a lot of hassles and paper too, say officials and to ensure there are no bottlenecks or confusion, proper "training is being imparted to all who are engaged in the exercise." One also notes lesser dependence on manpower this time, "everybody and everything is online available and the information is being shared by all.

The police too is all geared up and backed by IT which has made planning so easy and fool-proof. "We will have better and more efficient system in place and give better results this time," promises DIG Aseem Arun. He said more security forces were available this time. "The whole district has been divided into nine super zones (assembly seats are nine), 45 zones, and 304 sectors. Arrangements are in place for the stay of para military and PAC forces." Flag marches, and constant patrolling by Cobra mobile units will continue till the end of the exercise.

Raj Kumar Srivastav, chief development officer and in-charge of personnel has said the NIC (the central nerve system of informatics) played a key role. Each polling party consisting of four including a micro-observer, were being trained according to a detailed time-table.

The increased voter awareness and the sense of safety effectively injected into the system by thorough planning and monitoring by the Election Commission, have helped increase voting percentage, say officials. The confidence in the fairness and transparency of the system has been restored this time and it is showing results. "Election rolls are much more accurate and fewer complaints of non-inclusion of names or rigging by fake voters have been registered. These are indeed very satisfying trends," confided a senior official not wanting to be identified.

The fact that EVMs are helping save time, has been a contributory factor.

Social activist Abhinay Prasad says, "The Commission is gradually learning and its no-nonsense business-like commitment to fair conduct of the election process has won it many friends. The staggered poll system is undoubtedly paying dividends, although at first it looked a bit more time consuming and fears were expressed it might result in loss of interest in voters. So far we see no signs of people losing interest. On the contrary the momentum is building into a crescendo. Less noise and saving on expenses have also been helpful."