Over four lakh government employees and school and college teachers, who have been drafted for election duty, are hoping for better facilities at polling booths.
Many are reluctant to take up election work because of the lack of amenities at the place where they stay, the availability of food near the polling booth on the day of polling and the absence of transport services in case the booth is located in a remote area.
G. Venkatesan, one of the coordinators of JACTTO-GEO, said, “Though they are eligible for postal votes after they are assigned a polling booth a day before polling, they are usually busy finding out how they can reach the place. Some of them end up not receiving their postal ballots. Only after they cast their postal ballots should they be given the polling duty letter.”
A teacher of a women’s college in the city pointed out that many women staffers hope not to be drafted for election duty because of the lack of wash rooms and accommodation near the polling booths.
Another government employee said most of those assigned election duties are aged above 50 and tend to have high blood pressure and diabetes.
“Naturally, they have to eat food on time. Instead of giving money, breakfast and lunch packets can be made available to them on the day of polling through the local bodies. Local police stations could take care of the requirements of all policemen deployed in their jurisdiction.”
“The Transport Department must operate special night buses for the polling staff so that they are not left in the lurch after they hand over the EVMs and the VVPATs to the police personnel,” he said.
When The Hindu contacted Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo, he said, “We are very, very vigilant on this. Time and again, we have been instructing our election machinery to provide minimum facilities, which the Election Commission desires... It is non-negotiable and we are ensuring that also.”
“Even after that, if there are some cases or some deviations are noticed, we will be strict on that. We will ensure that all facilities provided by the Commission are made available to those involved in election work,” he said.
As for the demand for allowing government workers to proceed on polling duty only after they cast their postal ballots since some of them are not able to collect them on time, Mr. Sahoo said government officials assigned election duty were given postal ballots much in advance.
