NEW DELHI: The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday said voter identity cards will now be delivered to electors within 15 days, virtually halving the time taken.

Till now, it took a little over a month for the Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC) to be delivered to the voters, officials pointed out.

The EC said a new standard operating procedure (SOP) has been introduced to ensure that voter cards are delivered within 15 days of new enrolment of an elector or change in particulars of an existing voter.

The new system will ensure real-time tracking of each stage right from the EPIC generation by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) till the delivery of the card to the elector through the Department of Posts (DoP), the poll authority said.

The electors will also receive notifications via SMS at each stage, keeping them informed about the status of their EPIC, it noted.

For this purpose, the EC has introduced a dedicated IT module on its recently launched ECINet platform.

The new IT platform will replace the existing process by re-engineering the current system and streamlining the workflow.

The DoP's Application Programme Interface (API) will be integrated with the ECINet for seamless delivery, the EC said.

This initiative aims to enhance service delivery while maintaining data security. In the past four months, the Commission has taken various initiatives for the benefit of electors and other stakeholders.