Chennai: Relief for BLO as SIR work comes to a close

CHENNAI: As the deadline for submitting enumeration forms under the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls draws to a close on Thursday, the long and wearying weeks behind the process have left many Booth Level Officers battling exhaustion, anxiety, and a sense of being unheard.

Since November 4, BLOs across Chennai have knocked on doors from early morning, returned late into the evening with stacks of incomplete forms, and fielded calls long after work hours. For many, the task has been far from routine. Several officers described an unpredictable workflow, rapidly changing instructions, and mounting pressure from senior officials to submit forms well ahead of the official cutoff of December 11.

In Thousand Lights, a woman BLO, who requested anonymity, recalled being summoned to the zonal office after 8 pm during the distribution period. She said she struggled to keep pace with shifting rules on what information was required on each form. One day, relatives’ details were mandatory. The next day, they were not. Each change, she said, left officers scrambling to redo work that had taken hours in the field.

Another woman BLO in Virugambakkam expressed similar distress. Because her phone number was printed on the forms, she received calls throughout the day from residents seeking guidance. Official working hours are 10 am to 6 pm, yet she often began visiting houses at 7.30 am and continued well into the evening. Balancing constant field visits with the unending barrage of queries left her drained, she said.

In Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, BLO S Maniknagan said he sometimes had to visit the same house ten times to mark address shifts and verify details. Officers were later instructed to mark shifts even in uncollected forms, adding yet another layer to an already demanding schedule.

In T Nagar, a BLO said senior citizens often depended entirely on officers to fill out the forms. Those assigned to parts with more than 1,200 voters struggled with the volume.

Although the Greater Chennai Corporation set up voter help desks at 947 polling stations in November, turnout at the camps was poor, forcing officials to resume door-to-door collection. According to a BLO in T Nagar, senior officials later directed them to finish collecting forms eight days before the revised deadline. In one case, a resident whose form had been uploaded under the shifted category was asked by zonal staff to resolve the issue with the BLOs, leading to frustration on both sides.

GCC RDC Central and District Additional Election Officer HR Kaushik said 99 per cent of the forms had been digitised and that officers had been asked to verify absentee, shifted, deleted and death entries through the ASDD form.