600 Asha, Anganwadi workers protest SIR duty

A delegation of the workers later met Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer S Chokalingam and urged him to relieve them of SIR-related responsibilities

Mumbai: More than 600 Asha and Anganwadi workers protested at Azad Maidan on Tuesday, demanding that they be exempted from Special Intensive Revision (SIR) work, saying the additional election-related duties were affecting essential healthcare services.

600 Asha, Anganwadi workers protest SIR duty

A delegation of the workers later met Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer S Chokalingam and urged him to relieve them of SIR-related responsibilities.

The protesters said over 75,000 Asha workers and more than one lakh Anganwadi workers across the state had been deployed as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) or assistant BLOs for the electoral roll revision exercise.

The workers argued that assigning them election-related work compromised services such as maternal and child healthcare, malnutrition management, pre-primary education and distribution of nutritional supplements.

“Most of these women workers are educated up to Class 12, and are involved through the day with schemes involving child malnutrition, maternal care, pre-primary education, distribution of nutrition supplements etc, which is a critical work and could be affected if they are neglected,” Rajesh Singh, joint convenor of the Maharashtra Rajya Asha-Anganwadi Karmachari action committee.

He further added that, “They are also forced to work till late at night and even on Sundays for SIR work and have been threatened with notices and FIR’s if they failed to participate in the process.”