Deaths of poll duty staff: None of Prayagraj’s 74 applicants eligible for compensation

Going by the current rules, not a single government employee, who was deployed on duty in the recently concluded panchayat polls in the district and lost his or her life because of corona, has been found eligible for compensation from the state government, said district panchayat raj officer on Thursday

Going by the current rules, not a single government employee, who was deployed on duty in the recently concluded panchayat polls in the district and lost his or her life because of corona, has been found eligible for compensation from the state government, said district panchayat raj officer on Thursday.

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In such a situation, unless there is an exemption or change in norms by the government, there are chances that none of the 74 applicants from the district will get any compensation.

The panchayat elections were held last month during the pandemic. Later, the district administration had called for claims from family members of the employees, who had performed poll duty and died because of corona. The administration received 74 claims and the same were scrutinised by a committee set up by the district administration.

The committee was headed by chief development officer Shipu Giri.

“We scrutinised all the claims but found there was none which fits the present criteria of getting compensation. Only the person, who has left his home for poll duty and had died before reaching back to his or her home after performing the duty, would be considered for the compensation,” said Renu Srivastava, district panchayat raj officer (DPRO).

She further said the report has been sent to the government on Tuesday and if it decides to relax the norms or take any further decision, the same would be followed at the district level.

Meanwhile, the teacher’s association has lambasted the decision of the state government and the set norms.

The association had claimed that 1,621 teachers, educators and other departmental personnel who were on poll duty in the state had died due to coronavirus. They have demanded a compensation of ₹1 crore each to the families of the deceased and government jobs for the dependents.

“The fact that the state government has found just three cases of teachers suitable for compensation in the state as per the laid norms shows the insensitivity of the government. First, the government and the State Election Commission committed a crime of deploying teachers and employees of different government departments and other organisations like many centrally-funded academic institutions for poll duty during the peak of second wave of corona in the state and secondly, during the election training, voting and counting, they completely failed to follow the corona prevention guidelines and take precautionary measures,” said state general secretary of UP Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh (Thakurai faction), Lal Mani Dwivedi.