New Delhi, The security arrangements in the Gautam Budh Nagar district especially in and around the polling stations have been further tightened.

"We had already increased our visibility, presence, and checking to counter any threat," a senior police official said.

The polling began at 7.00 a.m. sharp in the morning with some residents reaching their nearest polling booth as early as 6.30 a.m. The voter turnout till 10.00 a.m. stood at 8.07 per cent. The police personnel were deployed in heavy numbers at the polling stations. They were also guiding people to maintain social distancing owing to the fear of contracting novel coronavirus.

"So far there has been no untoward incident and the voting is going on peacefully at every location," Additional DCP Greater Noida Vishal Pandey told IANS.

He said that a large number of mobile parties have been deployed so that all polling stations and their voters can do their work in a fair, fearless and credible manner and exercise their franchise.

It was officially learnt that each polling centre has been covered with CPMF and Civil Police for booth duty. Additional CPMF and police forces have been deployed at major centres.

The provision has also been made for webcasting or micro observer at critical centres. The Gautam Budh Nagar Police has in the past several days been very cautious and were taking continuous action against the criminals.

"All border checking of Gautam Budh Nagar and flag marches were conducted with paramilitary force personnel in all police station areas," a senior official said.

There are 566 polling stations and 1,840 polling booths in all the three Assembly constituencies of Gautam Budh Nagar -- Noida, Dadri and Jewar.

In order to make the voting fair and uninterrupted, the duty of magistrates and police officers has been imposed by dividing the three assemblies into 8 superzones, 26 zones and 125 sectors.

"A three-tier security arrangement has been made for strong room duty, in which the inner cordon and the second cordon will be of CPMF and outer cardan will be covered by the civil police," the official said.

Additional DCP Ranvijay Singh was also seen himself inspecting the security arrangements at the polling stations.