T CEO seeks 2–3 week extension of SIR as 40L notices yet to be delivered | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Telangana chief electoral officer C Sudarshan Reddy has sought a two-to-three-week extension of the special intensive revision (SIR) deadline from Election Commission, with nearly 40 lakh notices still awaiting delivery and hearings completed in only a fraction of the cases where notices have been served.“We are waiting for EC’s response,” Sudarshan Reddy said. Sources said the commission was likely to respond positively. The SIR deadline has also been extended in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.Of 92.8 lakh notices generated across Telangana, 52.9 lakh, or 57%, have been delivered while 39.9 lakh, or 43%, remain pending. At the prescribed daily delivery target of 2.3 lakh, clearing the existing backlog alone would take about 17 days.The claims and objections period, which began after publication of the draft roll on Aug 17, is currently scheduled to close on Sept 16. Disposal of claims, objections and notices can continue until Oct 15.Urban districts account for half the delivery backlogThe pressure is concentrated in Hyderabad and its adjoining districts. Medchal-Malkajgiri, Rangareddy and Hyderabad together account for 38.9 lakh notices, or 41.9% of the state total, but have 20.5 lakh notices still undelivered, which is 51.5% of Telangana’s pending delivery workload.Medchal-Malkajgiri has delivered only 3.6 lakh of its 14 lakh notices, a delivery rate of 26.2%. Rangareddy has delivered 50.3% and Hyderabad 67.7%.Quthbullapur has the state’s largest delivery backlog at 2.6 lakh, followed by Serilingampally with 2.1 lakh, Medchal with 2.1 lakh, Kukatpally with 2 lakh and Uppal with 2 lakh. Together, the five constituencies account for 27.5% of all the undelivered notices.Adilabad has the lowest delivery rate at 12.7%, followed by Kukatpally at 20.4%, Suryapet and Thungathurthi at 23.4% each and Uppal at 24.2%. Nagarkurnool leads with 98.6% delivery.Hearing, verification workload remainsWhile 52.94 lakh notices have been delivered, only 7.96 lakh hearings have been held, equivalent to about 15% of delivered notices. The data also shows 36 lakh hearing dates as lapsed and another 13,459 rescheduled hearing dates as having lapsed.There are also 3.41 lakh cases pending, including 42,306 for more than five days, with district election officers. Hyderabad alone shows 93,677 DEO-pending cases but only four marked as verified, another figure requiring clarification.Notices even to IAS officers, AI flags anomaliesSudarshan Reddy said notices were issued wherever anomalies were detected, irrespective of the elector’s position, and several IAS officers had also received notices. “I have got an anomaly notice, and I submitted documents for hearing,“ he said.He said artificial intelligence was being used to identify basic anomalies in electoral roll data. The notices themselves do not establish ineligibility but require electors to respond to discrepancies flagged during the SIR process.A special campaign was held on Sept 5 and 6 to intensify notice delivery and other pending work.Chief minister A Revanth Reddy has separately sought a four-week extension beyond Sept 16, along with three to four weeks for electors to answer notices, public readings of draft rolls and help desks in urban districts.