Teachers perform BLO duty reluctantly

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 7

Teachers employed in government middle, high and senior secondary schools of the district are crying foul over being given booth-level officer duties. They are among several other government employees who have been engaged in the process of attaching the voter identity cards of the residents of the district with Aadhar card numbers.

Under the National Electrol Rolls Purification Authentication and Programme (NERPAP), the procedure of attaching the Aadhar Card numbers and voter IDs has been launched at an all-India level by the Election Commission of India.

As part of the drive, the BLOs have to be present at special camps being held on every Sunday at the booths to help people be a part of the drive. They also have to conduct door to door survey to make people aware about the drive and help them fill the required forms.

The teachers said given the number of residents to be covered under every booth, the work may not be completed in the ‘non-teaching hours’ and hence, they were left with no other option but to engage in the work even during the school hours thereby affecting the studies of the students.

“There are more than 2,000 houses which are covered under the booth that I have been assigned. Every household may have more than two adults and recording their voter ID and Aadhar card details is a time-consuming process. Sometimes, we have to visit the houses twice to gather the full data required for the procedure. This commands a lot of our time,” a teacher employed in a government school said.

Calling the BLO duties a non-academic work, teachers said the administration should not have assigned the BLO duties to them since the same had been prohibited by the DGSE in a letter issued in 2012. In the letter, the DGSE had taken a strict note of the fact that the teachers take cover under the BLO duties and other non-academic works assigned to them to remain absent from schools.

Meanwhile, ADC (G) Varinder Sharma told Bathinda Tribune that 1,029 BLOs had been assigned the work in the district and 44 per cent of these were teachers.

“A large part of the workforce working in the government sector comprises of teachers working in government schools. We have no other option but to assign the BLO duties to teachers as government schools are located in the remotest of areas,” Sharma said.

“As per the directive issued by the ECI, the teachers are paid an honorarium of Rs 3,000 per year to engage in such assignments, as and when the need be. To make the process convenient to them, we try to assign areas to the teachers where either they are serving or are residing,” Sharma added.

While agreeing that the work was time-consuming, he said teachers have the option of working on the project during non-teaching hours.