India, July 16 -- The digital data entry of Mumbai's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has reached a mere 12% even as the one-month deadline to complete the process (July 29) is drawing near.

The reasons behind this lag are missing two-decade-old electoral records, confusion over multiple residences of voters, redevelopment-related address changes and an overburdened field staff. While voters are struggling to understand and put together documents dating back 2002 (the last cycle of SIR), BLOs are overwhelmed by manual paperwork and unavailability of residents, leaving Mumbai well behind rural Maharashtra in digital enumeration.

One of the worst affected in this exercise are married women with changed names who have to...