Hyderabad: Several residents of Old Hyderabad on Tuesday approached a station-level officer (BLO) of the Election Commission to help them identify their names in the 2002 electoral roll as part of the SIR pre-mapping exercise. To their shock, they were approached not by someone who knew the rule book but by a sanitation worker from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation who had no idea how to draw a voter map.
The issue came to light in Barkas in Chandrayangutta constituency when residents noticed the name and contact number of the designated BLO on the EC website and contacted them. “There are about 20 of us waiting at Al-Qurmoshi Global School in Salala, Barkas. When we talked to him, we realized he didn’t even know what BLO did. It wasn’t until I mentioned SIR mapping that he came to the site. ” said activist Syed Jallaluddin Zafar, who is helping residents draw maps.“He could not read or write in Telugu. He just handed over his phone to us and asked us to enter the details into an online form,” Zafar said. The video of the episode recorded by Zafar later went viral on X.While there is no clear rule prohibiting sanitation workers from being appointed as BLOs, the guidelines state that such roles are usually assigned to government or semi-government staff such as teachers, anganwadi workers, panchayat workers, clerks and bill collectors – who are expected to have basic literacy skills and management experience.A sanitation worker appointed as BLO said they have been given smartphones for SIR work. “With me, about 10 such staff have been deployed for this exercise. We were asked to open the portal on our mobile phones and hand it to the person, who then entered his or her details into a form. If the name came up, they would tick the box. I attended a training session and we were promised payment,” he said.The sanitation worker said that he started working at 5 a.m. and continued SIR duty after get off work at 2 p.m. “I cannot read or write in Telugu or English. We were only told to tick the box if their name came up. It’s only been two days since we started this work,” he said.Chandrayangutta electoral registration officer V Surender said the appointment was made due to acute manpower shortage. “A lot of the personnel have retired and the exercise is large, so this is a stop-gap measure. In our area, we have three sweepers serving as BLOs, but we make sure the personnel appointed are at least to level 9 and have basic proficiency. … They will be replaced very quickly.”
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