On Thursday afternoon, tensions rose at the Medinipur Sadar BDO office when several Booth Level Officers (BLOs) from Medinipur city and the Sadar block voiced their frustration with the growing workload of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) program, which is cleaning up West Bengal’s electoral rolls.
The BLOs, who are responsible for handing out and collecting voter registration forms, sent a memo to BDO Kahekashan Parveen. In it, they explained how the new data‑entry tasks—once outside their usual duties—are overwhelming, especially after their school hours. “I can’t do it anymore… data entry is not possible!” one BLO shouted. Others admitted they had never used Android phones for this purpose and feared that mistakes could bring complaints from voters.
Sanjeev Kumar, a BLO, told that they were first told to distribute and gather forms, but now they are also expected to enter the data, a task they say is beyond their skill set. “We can’t take it on. It’s disrupting our family life,” he added.
The memo also highlighted the pressure of meeting the one‑month deadline for distributing and collecting forms, and the risk of errors if data entry is rushed. Many BLOs who manage over 1,200 voters said they need assistant BLOs to handle the work accurately and reduce stress. They also asked for a deadline extension beyond December 4 for submitting and verifying the forms, saying that checking the details is as hard as distributing them.
In response, BDO Parveen said she would raise the concerns with higher authorities and that assistant BLOs would be assigned “according to the criteria.” The request comes at a crucial time, as the SIR process continues to upgrade and verify voter rolls across West Bengal before the next election.
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