Kolkata: Amid reports of constant death and hospitalization of the BLOs in several states, two BLOs from West Bengal shared with FPJ about their pressure which they had to undergo during visit to houses with enumeration forms and also performing duties both at house and at place of work.
Anirban Banerjee (30), who is handicapped as well, is a teacher at Raghopur-Radharani Primary school.
Be it as a BLO or as a school teacher, Banerjee as said by his wife Moumita Banerjee wakes up early in the morning at almost 7 am despite busy night schedules of data entry go to school and then had to visit houses for distribution of enumeration forms and then used to return home late at evening and soon after returning home had to0 sit with the data entry.
“Many a day my husband could not return home to have lunch and at night despite a tired schedule had to sit with data entry. He has difficulties in his legs and due to pressure, his skin cracked and was hospitalized in Kankurgachi’s Sushruta hospital. The day he was about to get hospitalized, ERO had asked me to do the data entry. How can I do that without proper training? Each day he used to visit at least 50 families and used to devote more than 20 minutes in each family” mentioned the BLOs wife.
Chairman of district primary school council Krishna Ghosh, who visited the BLO at the hospital stated that the BLO is also mentally down due to the financial crisis.
“Anirban Banerjee had taken loan against PF thrice for his medical treatment. Now he is worried about his hospitalization. In this school all teachers are made BLO despite physical ailments. Doctors had advised him of bed rest but he had to complete his work,” said Ghosh.
Another BLO Tanusree Modak Bhattacharya (45) of Jorasanko in north Kolkata area called the poll body and ERO ‘inhuman’.
Tanusree said since they are given ‘On Duty’ for which everyone is in a state of confusion whether they will be given ‘off’ from their teaching duties.
After clearing household chores, Tanusree used to leave her residence by 9 am everyday to reach out to people.
“Since we didn’t have enough training initially, we didn’t understand how to fill up the form. There is no shame in saying that initially our hard work got wasted as we ourselves could not explain to people how to fill the form. Then when we got the real hang, we again went back to the houses where we had already given the form. 9am to 10 pm was our regular duty and then comes the pain of data entry,” explained Tanusree.
Tanusree also clarified that everyday she had visited 40-45 families and had to devote 30 minutes to explain in each family.
“We were asked that every BLO would visit every house thrice. Explaining people about the form, getting all the members at a single go was impossible for which the workload had increased. The server used to be down most of the time and the ERO is so inhuman that even if the server got active in the late evening ERO used to pressurize us to sit with the data entry. Till 3 in the morning, we had to sit with the data entry. In districts this data entry is more difficult for people as they don’t know the use of android mobiles,” further mentioned tanusree.
