NEW DELHI: It is not just the skewed child sex ratio that reflects gender bias in the national capital. Delhi’s voter list, too, reflects how women voters lag in terms of numbers. At 797 women per 1,000 men, the gap is significant.

Delhi’s child sex ratio as per the 2011 census stands at a dismal 866 girls for every 1,000 boys. Keeping in view the gender bias reflected in the child sex ratio, the office of the chief electoral officer embarked on an innovative exercise to study the voter list and develop a gender ratio assessment across districts. The lists were subjected to scrutiny as part of the ongoing review and it was found that the gender ratio among voters, too, was poor.

On October 15 last year the first assessment report compiled by the electoral officers reflected that the gender ratio was a poor 788 females per 1,000 males across 11 districts. It referred to 66,37,100 male voters and 52,30117 female voters.

“It turned out that in the peripheries of Delhi, particularly some rural areas, women were restrained by families from coming out and enrolling themselves as voters. We realized that it was not just enough to build awareness. The need of the hour was to put in place arrangements to facilitate women voters to engage with the enrolment and review process,” chief electoral officer of Delhi Vijay Dev said.

He pointed that special camps for women were organized as part of the enrolment campaign. “In such camps we appointed women staff to assist women voters to enrol and get their identity cards made,” Dev said. A reassessment of the voter list in April this year reflects that that the enrolment drive managed to make some difference. From 788 females per 1,000 male voters last October the ratio is 797 females per 1,000 male voters. “We plan to organize more such camps in the months ahead,” Dev said.

Delhi’s has a total of 1.23 lakh voters. The CEO’s office is concerned that the rolls do not reflect the young voter in the 18-19 years age category. “When we set out to carry out the annual revision of electoral rolls last year we found that there were 93,000 odd youth in this age group. As per the average population base, the youth of this category must constitute 2%. But it was a dismal 0.5%. Drives carried out since have helped take the number to 2.25 lakh. This is still 1.5% of the total voters,” Dev said.

