Poll process 145;discouraging146;, Delhi spells out why it doesn146;t vote

According to a study conducted by the university, people are motivated to vote for their favourite reality TV show contestant since it is just an SMS away. But the tiresome procedure of electioneering 8212; right from registering one8217;s name to the chaos in and outside polling booths on D-day 8212; discourages people from lining up outside polling booths.

Uttam Prakash, a former NUS student conducted the research 8212; titled 8216;Low participation rates in Indian elections: Search ways to reduce participation costs8217; 8212; in 2006 as part of his university curriculum. Reason: 8220;I was alarmed at the decreasing percentage of voters in India.8221;

Prakash took up Delhi as the sample state and handed out questionnaires to some 500 people for the research.

He says, 8220;The costs involved in turning an electorate into a voter are essentially the costs of getting registered as an electorate, going to the poll, casting one8217;s vote, returning back, and the costs involved in gathering information for making a choice.

8220;People are not stationary. They keep moving from one place to another 8212; for job or marriage or other reasons. Getting oneself registered again and again is a cumbersome process, and a big deterrent for voting.8221;

Prakash says the cost or time spent in of getting information about contestants acts as the biggest repellent in India. 8220;The media does not properly disseminate performance of politicians, or what they stand for. This makes all politicians look identical,8221; he says.

In the end, he says, it leaves voters confused.

In his research project, Prakash also points out ways in which the problems can be tackled: 8220;Adding new services, expanding existing services, organising outreach to potential beneficiaries not using the service effectively, customising some existing services to a particular sub-population, and linking available existing service systems to take advantage of potential synergies can be used to reduce the cost.8221;

By way of example, Prakash says, 8220;A college student has to submit documents at the time of getting an identity card from the college. The same details can be shared by the college and the electoral office to make a voter8217;s I-card too.8221;