Booth-level workers avoid Covid duty in Bengaluru, BBMP in a fix

Bengaluru's municipal body's hyperlocal approach to manage Covid-19 at the electoral booth level has taken a back seat as the majority of the government employees deployed for booth-level committees are staying away from work fearing infection. Senior officials in four out of the eight zones in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) ET spoke to said that more than 70% of the staff deputed for Covid duty in booth-level committees remained absent from work. For instance, in the East zone, an officer handling Covid-19 work said that from the list of 6,474 boothlevel officers (BLOs) allotted to his zones, only 388 reported to work. In the South zone, only about 1,000 out of the sanctioned 7,250 BLOs joined work.

The delay is derailing the government’s plan to micro-manage Covid situation in electoral booths. Two weeks ago, the state had decided to form ward-level task forces and booth-level committees across all cities and towns including Bengaluru. While ward committees already exist in BBMP limits, the task was to activate them and to form separate booth-level committees. As per the plan, each booth was supposed to have 10 members including five government staff and five citizen volunteers.

Their responsibilities include identifying primary contacts, ensuring home isolation and home quarantine of Covid-positive persons and their primary contacts, coordination between patients and the BBMP to get ambulances if required, identifying those with influenza-like illness symptoms and severe acute respiratory infections. The BBMP decided to make use of 36,000 BLOs in 7,295 booths and rely on their knowledge of the neighbourhood houses. BLOs are either government school teachers or employees in various government departments and agencies.


But, officials said, most of the BLOs were either not available to be contacted or refused to join the duty citing reasons such as age, comorbidities and transportation issues. “While some cases are genuine and we will exempt them from work, many are blatantly lying,” said an officer in the East zone, who did not wish to be identified. Besides, some departments have raised objections to the BBMP’s decision to call their staff to attend to Covid duty. For instance, Bescom has written to the BBMP saying it cannot let go of its staff except a few, since it is an essential service provider.

Nonetheless, BBMP officials said they are confident of pulling it off. “We are getting a revised list of staff available for Covid duty from various departments. We have got 6,000 additional staff in the last week,” said J Manjunath, BBMP special commissioner coordinating human resource for Covid. He also said the BBMP had received an overwhelming response from citizen volunteers. “About 25,000 have registered with us, of which 6,000 are working on a daily basis,” said Manjunath.

BBMP CALLING BANK STAFF DRAWS IRE
In a letter to the Indian Banks’ Association, Mumbai, last week, the All India Bank Officers’ Association complained that the BBMP was drawing staff members from banks for Covid duty. It said the BBMP had sent messages to bank employees asking them to report for duty in a short window which was creating problems. This was done without any intimation to the controlling offices or bank branches, the association said and sought the IBA’s intervention.