SIR: No extension, meet December 4 deadline, Tamil Nadu government tells staff
The assurance was one of the promises that the government gave to the staff to cajole them into withdrawing the protest.
Tamil Nadu Government
CHENNAI: After assuring the protesting Revenue Department staff that the deadline to complete the enumeration work under the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls would be extended, the State government has now informed officials that no additional time would be granted.
The assurance was one of the promises that the government gave to the staff to cajole them into withdrawing the protest.
In separate communications sent to district Collectors and officials in the Revenue and other departments, Chief Secretary N Muruganandam and Revenue Department Secretary P Amutha said the Election Commission of India (ECI) has fixed December 4 as the final date for distributing and collecting enumeration forms. Hence, Booth Level Officers should complete the work within the stipulated period, the officials instructed.
The letters reminded the officials involved in the work that the deadline was fixed by the ECI and would not be altered under any circumstance.
The communications came at a time when Tamil Nadu is lagging behind 10 of the 12 states and Union Territories where the Election Commission initiated the electoral roll revision in this phase. As of November 22, Tamil Nadu has distributed enrolment forms to 95.78 per cent of the electorate, behind only Puducherry Union Territory with 95.15 per cent.
Incidentally, West Bengal, another Opposition-ruled State where the ruling party is staunchly opposed to SIR, has completed 99.74 per cent of the work, while the Left-ruled Kerala has reached 97.15 per cent.
The directives from the top brass also emphasised that forms must be collected from voters and uploaded daily on the BLO app or the ECI Net portal. It may be noted that only 35.86 per cent forms have been digitised till Saturday – only Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, and Chhattisgarh have performed poorly on this count.
The latest communication is likely to anger the government officials, who have been complaining about unreasonable workload and staffing constraints.
