Nawanshahr, September 24, 2018: Irate over the hassles being faced by the teachers especially lady staff during poll duty, the district unit of the Master Cadre Union led by its president Harminder Singh Uppal held a meeting here today.
The Union discussed the problems faced by teachers during poll duty and decided to submit memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner.
“Besides other problems, the members of the Union have expressed grave concern over the issues related to their security at polling stations and the court cases due to the enmity between different political parties or candidates during the Panchayat polls. Besides, the polling staff have to face lot of inconvenience during poll rehearsals as well as at the time of depositing ballot boxes and other materials at the collection centres after conducting polling in the absence of ambiguous instructions”, said MCU president while adding that a memorandum raising their demands was drafted for submitting the same to the Deputy Commissioner.
The MCU has urged the DC to ensure proper security, a minimum 10 lakh insurance cover and adequate legal assistance, TA/ DA and permission to appear for court cases on official duty to ameliorate the sufferings of the employees put on poll duty. The MCU suggested to hold counting of votes during panchayat polls at block level to avert apprehension of clashes and manhandling of poll staff at the polling booths.
Besides, the MCU has demanded to put employees on duty in their respective blocks, to exempt physically challenged employees from poll duty, put lady staff on duty at their nearest polling booths, put one employee on poll duty in case of couples, to pay remunerations at the time of the first rehearsal, proper arrangement of transportation, food and boarding of the staff, to make poll process simple and remove ambiguities in instructions, ensuring casting of votes by the staff put on duty and to announce holiday for the following day of the polling, said Uppal.