Two booth level officers engaged in SIR die in Madhya Pradesh, kin blame work pressure

BHOPAL: Two government teachers working as booth level officers under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls have died in two separate districts of Madhya Pradesh over the last 24 hours. The two have been identified as Ramakant Pandey and Sitaram Gond. While the authorities claimed that the two BLOs died due to health related issues, the bereaved families alleged that it was due to unbearable work pressure and fear of being suspended for not achieving the daily targets. Confirming the death of Ramakant Pandey, a teacher-cum-BLO from Satlapur area, who was assigned voter list revision task in Mandideep area, the sub divisional officer (SDO) and electoral registration officer of Raisens Bhojpur assembly segment Chandrashekhar Srivastava reportedly said that Pandey died on Friday night due to some illness. We are awaiting the autopsy, which will make the cause of death clear. Pandeys widow Rekha and other family members, however, alleged that excessive work pressure, including working late at nights, repeated orders to achieve unrealistic targets and fear of being suspended for dereliction of duty if the targets werent met, caused the death of the middle-aged teacher, who was posted at Tilakhedi primary school. Around 220 km away, in Damoh district, another middle-aged school teacher Sitaram Gond, who was tasked with enumeration duties in Ranjra and Kuda Kudan villages, suddenly fell ill on Thursday while getting the enumeration forms filled. He was first taken to the Damoh district hospital, but later referred by doctors to Jabalpur for advanced treatment in serious condition, where he breathed last during treatment on Friday night, an education department official said. The deceased teachers close relatives and friends claimed that he was under severe work pressure. He had only managed to complete 10-15% of work in the two villages assigned to him. Vadodara BLO assistant dies on duty amid rising SIR workload concerns; four deaths in four days across Gujarat Earlier, on Wednesday, another teacher-cum-BLO identified as Bhuwan Singh Chouhan, had died at his home in Alirajpur district, after slipping from the stairs in his house. He left behind his widow and eight children, only two of whom are married. While recounting his suspension for dereliction of duties on Tuesday, elder daughter Sangita and son Anil alleged that the stress after being suspended caused the death. His brother-in-law, who too is a teacher-cum-BLO, said, Unrealistic verbal targets have been set for us, completing enumeration of 100 voters in a single day. A large part of the population works as migrant labourers in the adjoining Gujarat, so its becoming difficult to track them and get the enumeration work done. Bhuwan Singh was suspended for not attending the training. How can he attend training while he was in the field to achieve the unwritten targets of completing enumeration tasks with 100 voters daily? He was under severe stress due to suspension and subsequent attachment to Ranapur tehsil in adjoining Jhabua district, which could have caused the killer mishap. According to SDM-Jhabua district Bhaskar Gachle, Bhuwan was suspended on the basis of a report by Nayab Tehsildar-Bori about the concerned BLO not doing the enumeration work properly. Prior to this, on November 11, a 50-year-old teacher-cum-BLO Udaybhan Sihare had allegedly died by suicide by hanging from a noose tied to a ventilator in the washroom of a primary school in Pandokhar of Datia district. My brother neither knew how to drive a motorcycle, nor did he know how to properly operate a mobile phone. He was unable to do the SIR related work properly and was under severe stress, owing to the fear of getting suspended. It perhaps provoked him to take the extreme step, the deceased teacher-cum-BLOs brother Dharmendra Sihare said. One more BLO dies by suicide in West Bengal, family alleges SIR-related stress