Fewer teachers on poll duty this time: collector

“There have been requests from the teaching staff. We will keep their number minimum for poll-related duties. We will need more people considering the rise in the number of voters and auxiliary polling centres. But we will rope in other staff from departments for the purpose,” said Dalvi,who is also the chief election officer of the district.

The final list is yet to be readied. The election department has not yet finalised the list of auxiliary polling stations for the 21 constituencies in the district. Till date,the department has zeroed in on 30,000 government employees from nearly 126 government and semi-government organisations.

Deputy director of education (Pune region) Sunil Magar said it will be a welcome move if the staff strength for poll duties is reduced considering that more than 50 per cent of the staff is usually sent out on election duty. “This will affect the academics. Due to the swine flu fear schools were closed for quite sometime. It is a big responsibility on the teachers to cover the syllabus,” he said.

Earlier this month,a school teachers’ association had submitted a letter to Chief Minister Ashok Chavan requesting him to cut down the number of teachers on poll duty to 25 per cent of what it was last time. “Even a considerable reduction in the number of teachers on poll duty will help us,” said a primary education officer from the zilla parishad. The teachers were assigned work such as photo identity card distribution,preparation of electoral rolls,other poll/ counting day duties.

In the letter to the Chief Minister,the teachers had stated that the two-week closure of schools between August 11 and 23 to check spread of HINI virus had severely affected academics. Even earlier,at least 12 schools were closed at different times due to swine flu.

The district administration has registered 63 lakh voters till now and will register more during the ongoing drive that will last till mid-September. With the nominations to be filed by September 17,the election officers said the drive will continue,resulting in a likely increase in the number of voters in all the 21 Assembly constituencies of the district. “Only the Raigad constituencies of Uran,Panvel and Karjat will be out for the Assembly elections. There will be a lot more polling centres which will require more people for duties,” said a government officer on election duty.