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NCERT Solutions for Class 9th Social Science Chapter 7 ECI creates the electoral roll — THINK ABOUT IT

Book page 168 Updated on2026-09-08

Q1.
You will turn 18 in a few years. As a responsible citizen, you should register yourself as a voter. Find out the various steps of the procedure for registration and the list of required documents for the same. Discuss, with anyone who has just turned 18 and has registered as a voter, the ease or difficulty faced in the voter registration process.
Answer

This has three parts — find out the steps, list the documents, and interview a first-time voter. Here is how to do each, and a model write-up.

1. Find out the steps. Use the ECI's own sources, not hearsay: the Voters' Service Portal, the Voter Helpline App that the chapter describes in Fig. 7.6 as a multipurpose app for registration, transposition and verification, or your Electoral Registration Officer's office. The broad sequence is:

  1. Check that you are eligible — a citizen of India who is 18 years of age or above on the qualifying date, and ordinarily resident in that constituency.
  2. Check whether your name is already on the roll, by searching the electoral roll for your polling station.
  3. Fill the form for inclusion of a new elector (Form 6), online through the portal or the app, or on paper at the ERO's office.
  4. Attach proof of age, proof of address and a recent photograph, and submit.
  5. The Booth Level Officer verifies the details at your address; the claim is then published for objections.
  6. Once accepted, your name appears on the roll and the Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) is issued.

2. List the documents. Write down exactly what your ERO's list says, under three heads: proof of age (such as a birth certificate or a school leaving certificate showing date of birth), proof of ordinary residence (such as a utility bill, bank passbook or a document in a parent's name along with a declaration), and a passport-size photograph. Copy the list from the official form itself — the accepted documents are printed on it.

3. Interview a first-time voter. Ask a fixed set of questions so the answers can be compared: How did you apply — online or on paper? How long did it take from application to your name appearing? Did the Booth Level Officer visit? What was the hardest part? Did anything have to be corrected?

Sample answer: I spoke to my cousin, who turned 18 last year and registered through the Voters' Service Portal. She said filling Form 6 online took about twenty minutes and the hardest part was arranging address proof, because the electricity bill is in her father's name, so she had to attach his document with a declaration. The Booth Level Officer came home three weeks later to verify. Her name appeared in the revised roll after about a month, and the EPIC arrived by post. Her advice was to apply well before an election is announced, because the offices are far busier once the schedule is out.

Why the chapter puts this here: it comes immediately after the paragraph on the Special Intensive Revision, whose purpose is that no eligible citizen is left out — and the chapter notes that young voters who have just turned 18 are exactly the group most likely to be left out for lack of awareness. Registering yourself, and helping one other person register, is the small, concrete version of that whole idea.
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