<span style="color: black;">The Election Commission's two-day Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation SVEEP Consultation Workshop ended today. The agenda of the workshop was to review State SVEEP Plans and conduct extensive deliberations on the important aspects of SVEEP for a comprehensive strategy for the forthcoming elections.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">Addressing the participants, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra observed that each voter interacts with the election machinery at two critical stages namely during enrollment and poll day and the two experiences must be very pleasant ones. He stressed that the field teams should ensure that the enrolment process is seamless and polling experience remains hassle-free for the voters. He added that it is imperative that we evaluate our strategy and current interventions at regular intervals, identify critical gaps and address the challenges to devise deliverable action points. He emphasised that implementation of the strategy at the ground level is important. Mr Chandra stressed on the need for a 360-degree SVEEP ' Communication Strategy to ensure that voters have access to all election-related information and our SVEEP strategy must be voter-centric and booth centric.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">Shri Sushil Chandra along with Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar unveiled a new initiative to reach out to new voters through a personalized letter from the Commission when sending out their Voter ID Cards. The package would include a Voter Guide for new voters along with a congratulatory letter and a pledge for ethical voting.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said that the need for communication is self-evident in today's world. He highlighted the role of social media and the new mediums of communication in outreach efforts. Shri Kumar elaborated on the importance of content strategy and distribution channels as part of the holistic communication plan. He said partnering with district level local icons would help strengthen our messaging with our voters.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey, while interacting with the teams highlighted the importance of synergy between the use of social media and traditional forms of communication in the SVEEP strategy. He said that the state teams should further conduct similar workshops and deliberations with District Electoral Officers and their teams in the states.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">The Commission also launched the latest issue of the 'My Vote Matters- a Quarterly magazine of the Commission, a document on Online Activities for Electoral Literacy Clubs and a song booklet with a compilation of lyrics of motivational SVEEP songs.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: black;">The two-day consultation workshop was attended by Chief Electoral Officers and SVEEP Nodal Officers from Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. To further enrich the idea and knowledge exchange, Senior officers from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting were also invited for this consultation workshop. The workshop was also attended by Senior DECs, DECs, DGs, CEO Delhi and senior officials from the Election Commission.</span><br />''  <br />