"For binding [legal] obligation, the election commission will not be able to register as voters a large number of adult people. The figure might be over 30 lakh," a senior EC official told The Daily Star requesting anonymity.

The people who have become adult after January 1, 2005 and those who will be in 2006 will be considered ineligible to be on the roll, according to an electoral ordinance. Only those who are not less than 18 years of age on January 1, 2005 will be allowed to register to vote.

Once the people are kept out of the voter list, most of them will not have the chance to practise their constitutional rights to vote in the next general election, scheduled for January 2007, unless they have their names listed on the roll on their own initiative.

But after a voter list is published, the process for the people to be on the register on their own gets much more difficult, which is why they display an indifference to the matter, said electoral experts.

It seems the EC itself is not aware of the provision. Talking to The Daily Star, an election commissioner yesterday expressed his ignorance about the provision. He, however, said they will look into the matter.

The commission this month will

start preparing the voter list. Though it has yet to be decided whether the roll will be a fresh or a revised one, the qualifying age for franchise will be 18 years on January 1, 2005, according to The Electoral Rolls Ordinance 1982.

The ordinance, defining the qualifying date says, "In relation to the preparation, amendment or revision of every electoral roll under this Ordinance, means the first day of January of the year in which it is so prepared or revised."

In line with the qualifying date, the registration officers will register names of only those who will be not less than 18 years of age on January 1, 2005.

Those who would become adults (18 years) after the qualifying date (January 1) will not be able to have their names on the list. Besides, the people who will come of age in 2006 and 2007 too will be excluded from the list.

The previous EC records show that 17 to 18 lakh people become eligible to be voters every year. So, the total number of people to be considered ineligible to vote might exceed the 30-lakh mark.

The senior officials of the EC secretariat, however, said those whose names will not be put on the list during the regular registration period will still have scope to be registered after publication of the voter list next year.

An adult has to fill up only one form to register his/her name during the registration period while he/she has to go through three stages to be registered after the period. This discourages people from being registered on their own initiative.

An EC official suggested resetting the qualifying date by extending it for a few more months, leading up to the publication date of the list.

"The electoral roll law will have to be amended to readjust the qualifying date. If the commission fixes the date to be in January next year, a large number of people will get the chance to be registered," he added

The task of preparing the voter list will take at least eight months to complete and the final list will be published in March/April next year, according to the current plan of the EC.

The official said the Indian election commission fixes the qualifying date, extending it for a few months to deal with such problems. He said if they set the date to be in January next year, they would start putting voters' names on the list from October or November in the previous year.

"We can do the same. In that case, our enumerators will gather information also on those people who will come of age in January next year, and accordingly, register those as voters," he added.