New Delhi: For a country where elections are a way of life and voters are expected to elect from a long list of candidates all vying for a piece of the vote-share, awareness among the electorate about their candidates and the issues involved seems to be alarmingly low.

In an attempt to correct this situation, a Delhi-based NGO (Non-Government Organisation) has come up with "VoteSmart", an integrated database that will have "bio-data of each candidate in the election, so that voters have an idea of who is likely to shape their future and exactly how he or she proposes to set about it."

"We propose to make a list of CV's (Curriculum Vitaea) of candidates with inputs from state Election Commission records, the candidate's own views as well as those of his opponents," says Pramod Chawla of the National Campaign for India, under whose aegis this project is being undertaken.

While Election Commission officials are cagey about the exact nature of support that would be extended to a project like this, they feel confident that this will help in proper implementation of the Supreme Court judgement on the voter's right to information.

The project, which is in its initial stages will start off with candidates in the Assembly election in Delhi and then move to elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka, finally hoping to cover the entire country by the time national elections come about in October 2004.

PTI