RAMANATHAPURAM, December 12, 2015
Election officials sore over non-payment of honorarium
- SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
They are yet to receive polling allowance for the Lok Sabha election
Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) and supervisors engaged in summary revision of electoral rolls are upset as they have not received the honorarium for their work under the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP).
They could not actively take part in the ongoing arduous summary revision of electoral rolls, due for publication on January 20, 2016, as they are yet to be paid the honorarium of Rs. 2,500 for the BLOs and Rs. 5,000 for supervisors. The BLOs are also yet to be paid their polling allowance for the Lok Sabha election held last year.
Though the government had disbanded the NERPAP in August after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Aadhaar card, the BLOs and supervisors had covered 58 per cent of the 77 per cent of voters having Aadhaar cards in the district but could not get the honorarium, official sources said.
About 1,300 panchayat secretaries, noon-meal workers, schoolteachers, anganwadi workers, village assistants and village administrative officers worked as BLOs and 180 Revenue Inspectors and Deputy Tahsildars as supervisors in the district, the sources said.
The BLOs were also aggrieved that they ended up paying SMS charge every time they messaged about the status of the applications they received for addition, deletion, correction and change of address though they were given toll-free numbers, the sources said.
They would have scrutinised about 28,000 applications during the summary revision, the sources said.
The BLOs and those engaged in the revision work had problems in deleting names of deceased persons as the previous Chief Electoral Officer had insisted that they could delete the names only on receipt of death certificates. As the families failed to submit death certificates, the officials faced problems in deleting the names of the dead. This issue was, however, addressed now as the BLOs were authorised to suo motu take action and delete the names of the deceased voters after serving notices to the families concerned, they said.
Summary revision
Meanwhile, the staff and officers were busy completing the summary revision and the revised electoral rolls with an addition of new voters would be sent for approval by the Electoral Registration Officers on December 25, the sources added.