Experience of conducting voting exercise in India

If you work in a public sector company you are a public servant. But in India it is other way around, you become a government servant, you have to abide by every order (official terms are Circulars, Notices, etc...) even if does not belong to your domain of knowledge or ability or any other suitable word you want to fit in here.

Kolkata and adjoining places went to vote on 27.04.2011. The manpower summoned by the election commission largely comprised of such public servants. The tyranny of the people chosen for this exercise on a pure random basis without putting any logical inputs can be put in a just a word. “Un-Explainable”

Some examples:

• All such people referred to as polling personnel are supposed to be thoroughly trained for this exercise. There are only two sessions in which you are supposed to learn things similar to a Management Degree Course. Easy for some…. Downside is the training was given entirely in Bengali. Think of the public servants working in Bengal who have been posted from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat…
• The commission knows the conditions of the remote places. But DOES not care to take any steps to ensure proper lighting facilities for such polling booths. Result: Even the fittest of the youth would find to difficult to see the ballot and press the button, almost everyone would turn blind.
• Paper work as in any government work is very high... but having 200 envelopes and forms to filled in signed and sealed along with taking votes is a big ask and requires too much time. We need to understand and SIMPLYFY the process, there is too much scope here for simplicity.

The media is always busy shooting celebrities and accounting first timers experience should also try and report about the conditions of such places.

Suggestions to the election commission:

• Please spare the aged people (50 and above) from such duties. As we grow Old we become fragile.
• Please take the pain to ensure proper lighting wherever possible.(I never expected a place around Kolkata to not have electricity…)
• SIMPIFY the processes… if you are adopting technology for the betterment do away with the papers (as in We send SMS and also record the same information in three forms and triplicate and file them in separate envelops. WHY?)

Lastly, thank you Election Commission, for choosing me, in the process someone about to retire in a month would have been spared of the Ordeal we had been through.