Ganjam, Cuttack among districts with most Odisha SIR deletions

Odisha's electoral roll has shrunk by 2.01 million voters, a 6% deletion rate, during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. The state's draft roll, published July 5, now stands at 31.3 million voters. This deletion rate is the third lowest among states where the enumeration phase has concluded.

The Special Intensive Revision is a two-stage process. First, the Election Commission of India distributes enumeration forms and publishes names in a draft roll. The second stage involves corrections and further verification before the final roll is published.

Data released July 6 by the Election Commission of India reveals that deletions in Odisha do not follow the pattern seen in other large states. Typically, more urban districts show higher deletions, possibly because rural-to-urban migrants retain their names on their home rolls. In Odisha, however, deletions show no discernible pattern linked to a district's urbanization level.

Ganjam and Cuttack districts recorded the highest number of deletions, with 207,624 and 155,166 voters removed, respectively. Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, and Balangir also saw significant deletions. Conversely, Deogarh, Boudh, and Nuapada had the fewest deletions. Malkangiri district experienced the highest percentage deletion rate at 10.2%, followed by Balangir (7.4%) and Cuttack (7.1%). These districts exhibit varied urbanization levels, with rural population shares ranging from 72% to 91.9% in the 2011 census.

“

The SIR is a two-stage process. The first phase of the exercise involves the ECI distributing enumeration forms and publishing the names of those who return filled forms in the draft roll. The second stage makes corrections to this draft roll after further verification, which results in the publication of the final roll.