EC to hold first meeting with central observers in Delhi on Thursday

The Election Commission (EC) will hold its first meeting with central observers, including those who will keep a check on black money and illegal inducements, on Thursday as part of preparations for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Officials said the full EC, comprising Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Election Commissioners Ashok Lavasa and Sushil Chandra, apart from other senior officials of the poll body, will "brief the central observers about their roles and responsibilities while being on election duty".

The meeting is the first since election dates were declared by the EC on March 10.

The officials said the EC, till now, has earmarked deploying over 800 expenditure monitoring observers for the multi-phase polls that begin on April 11.

The observers are drawn from various central services like the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax and Customs and Excise), the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service (IPS), apart from others, and they are considered