LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Sept 5: Preparation of new voters’ list is in full swing in Khyber Agency under the joint supervision of the Election Commission and political administration.

Assistant Election Commissioner of Khyber Agency Mohammad Farid said that the Agency is divided into 343 blocks with a similar number of enumerators, majority of whom are government school teachers.

A preliminary list will be prepared by Sept 11 which will be rechecked by a team of 121 supervisors, mostly comprising senior school teachers.

Mr Farid said that after rechecking the list by supervisors, the EC and political administration will receive complaints about the list after Sept 27 to maintain transparency in the compiling of the list. At least 8 complaint centres would be established for the convenience of new voters, he added.

Mr Farid said that though the response of social and political activists was overwhelming and very cooperative during the enumeration drive, the EC faced difficulty in enrolment of women voters as majority of them were reluctant to disclose their names to the enumerating staff. Majority of tribal women were even without national identity cards, he said.

He said that the EC was however able to enrol new voters even in the inaccessible areas of Tirah valley and some teams went up to Kachkol area, adjacent to Tora Bora mountains. He said that rivalry between some religious groups in Malikdin Khel area hampered their drive to a certain extent.

Mr Farid said that the EC had earlier enrolled 175,045 voters, including 45,825 female voters in the Khyber Agency.

The total population of Khyber Agency, according to 1998 census is 546,730, including 262,128 women.