Telangana Chief Electoral Officer C Sudarshan Reddy has sought a two-to-three-week extension of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, citing the large number of notices yet to be delivered and the limited number of hearings completed so far.
With the claims and objections period scheduled to end on September 16, Sudarshan Reddy wrote to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Saturday, September 5, seeking an extension of the schedule. Under the current timeline, the disposal of claims, objections and notices will continue until October 15, and the final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on October 19.
If the extension is granted, the final electoral roll is likely to be published in the last week of November or the first week of December, according to reports.
Earlier, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had also written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar seeking a four-week extension of the claims and objections period. He also sought an additional three to four weeks for electors who receive notices to respond and submit supporting documents.
The request comes as the state continues to grapple with a substantial backlog in the delivery of SIR notices and the verification of electors.
Of the 92.8 lakh notices generated across Telangana, around 52.9 lakh, or 57%, had been delivered as of Saturday, leaving 39.9 lakh, or 43%, pending. At the prescribed daily delivery target of 2.3 lakh notices, clearing the existing backlog alone would take around 17 days.
Among the notices already delivered, hearings have been completed for only a fraction of electors. Officials said 7.96 lakh hearings had been held, accounting for around 15% of the 52.94 lakh notices delivered. The data also showed around 36 lakh hearing dates had lapsed, while another 13,459 rescheduled hearing dates had also lapsed.
There were 3.41 lakh cases pending with district election officers, including 42,306 that had remained pending for more than five days. Hyderabad alone accounted for 93,677 cases pending with the DEO, although only four had been marked as verified, according to the data.
The delivery backlog is particularly high in Hyderabad and neighbouring districts. Medchal-Malkajgiri, Rangareddy and Hyderabad together account for 38.9 lakh notices, or 41.9% of the state total. Of these, 20.5 lakh remain undelivered, accounting for more than half of Telangana’s overall pending delivery workload.
Medchal-Malkajgiri has delivered only 3.6 lakh of the 14 lakh notices generated there, a delivery rate of 26.2%. Rangareddy has delivered 50.3% of its notices, while Hyderabad has delivered 67.7%.
Quthbullapur has the highest constituency-level backlog, with 2.6 lakh notices yet to be delivered, followed by Serilingampally and Medchal with 2.1 lakh each, and Kukatpally and Uppal with two lakh each. Together, these five constituencies account for 27.5% of all undelivered notices in the state.
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 has the highest delivery rate at 98.6%.
Sudarshan Reddy said notices were being issued wherever anomalies were detected in electoral roll data, irrespective of an elector’s position or status. He said even some IAS officers had received notices.
“I have got an anomaly notice, and I submitted documents for hearing,” Sudarshan Reddy said.
He said artificial intelligence was being used to identify basic anomalies in the electoral roll data. The issuance of a notice does not by itself establish that an elector is ineligible, but requires them to respond to discrepancies flagged during the SIR process.
The state conducted a special campaign on September 5 and 6 to intensify notice delivery and clear other pending work.
Meanwhile, the ECI is yet to respond to the Telangana CEO’s request for an extension. The SIR schedule in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has also been extended.