Over 9,000 BMC staff roped in for poll duty
Responding to questions, BMC officials said that the number of BMC staffers on election duty is much higher in comparison to the previous years as this time, each booth will be manned by individual BLOs.
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"Mumbai has nearly 7,500 booths during elections. Earlier, one BLO would handle five booths. But this time, it is being learnt that one block level officer will be appointed for one booth. This is one of the reasons why this year, the number of people deployed on duty is much higher," said an official requesting anonymity.
With the Lok Sabha (LS) elections fast approaching, over 9,000 BMC staffers across departments have been deployed on election duty over the weekend. Senior civic officials have aired concerns that the staff crunch is likely to strain civic works as well as day-to-day targets.
According to senior officials from the civic general administration department, while several staffers had already been deployed on election duty since the past few months, over the past few days, about 9,000 fresh staffers have been roped in to work as block level officers (BLO) and zonal officers (ZO), during the elections. Of the 9,000, over 7,000 will be deployed on duty as BLOs.
Responding to questions, BMC officials said that the number of BMC staffers on election duty is much higher in comparison to the previous years as this time, each booth will be manned by individual BLOs.
“Mumbai has nearly 7,500 booths during elections. Earlier, one BLO would handle five booths. But this time, it is being learnt that one block level officer will be appointed for one booth. This is one of the reasons why this year, the number of people deployed on duty is much higher,” said an official requesting anonymity.
Owing to the dispatch of such a large number of civic staff, civic department heads have sounded alarms over a delay in the execution of civic works.
Another official added, “Last week, we were asked to submit a list of staff from each department who we would be deployed on election duty. There was a lot of pressure to relieve the staff and thus, we have done so. This has affected our work as we are currently working with a much smaller workforce. Before this, we had also deployed staff for the Maratha survey.”
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