Online exam to test returning officers

Kolkata: Ahead of deputy election commissioner Sudip Jain’s visit to West Bengal, the Election Commission has decided to conduct for the first time an online examination to assess if returning officers (ROs) of assembly constituencies have the legal and technical expertise to conduct a high-profile election.
“Returning officers — who are mainly block development officers (BDOs) or subdivisional officers (SDOs) — are responsible for free and fair polls in a particular constituency.They directly report to the district election officer or the district magistrate. Currently, there are around 350 ROs training at the Administrative Training Institute. After three days of training, they will write an exam conducted by India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management. Whoever fails to clear the test will have to train all over again,” a state election commission official said.
The exam will be of 20 marks, divided equally into two sections — Part-A or ‘must-know’ category and Part-B or ‘might-know’ category. “It will be a multiple-choice question paper, with one mark for each question. Examinees will have to get 8 out of 10 correct in each section. They will get 30 minutes to answer each part. There may be some relaxation for Part-B, but if one fails to qualify Part-A, a fresh training will be must,” the official said.
The EC is also mulling a similar test and training for presiding officers. “Once presiding officers are named, they may have to go through training and examination,” the official said.
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