Kakinada, April 24^th: The Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) which were put in use for the recently concluded elections were kept under safe custody by the district election authorities. They were kept safely at the strong rooms provided for the same in the presence of the poll observers. Necessary measures were taken by the authorities to ensure safety of them. This time the counting will be organized on a centralized basis instead of decentralized process which was in practice earlier. So the counting for all the three LS seats and 19 Assembly segments will be done at district head quarters.

Counting related to Kakinada Parliamentary seat and seven assembly segments under it will be done at V.S Lakshmi College for Women. For Amalapuram Loksabha seat and the seven Assembly segments the strong room facility was given at Andhra Polytechnic and MSN Charities jointly. For Rajahmundry LS and Assembly segments the facility is provided at Government Polytechnic and Ramachandrapuram constituency at Rangaraya Medical College. Initially the counting was also planned at JNTU. But with the exception given by the election authorities not to cause disturbance to academic activities of the students the same was cancelled.