Tamil Nadu Revenue, Anganwadi Teams To Boycott Voter List Revision Work

A large section of Tamil Nadu’s government employees, especially those from the Revenue Department and anganwadi centres, are gearing up to boycott all work related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls from tomorrow.
The decision has brought fresh attention to the growing dissatisfaction among field-level staff who say they are under severe pressure because of the manner in which the SIR exercise is being carried out across the state.

The SIR is a statewide drive to update the voter list, during which thousands of staff are deployed as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) to visit houses, collect forms, verify details, and upload data within tight deadlines. Revenue staff, anganwadi workers, teachers, and other field personnel have been roped in to complete the exercise.

The Federation of Associations of Revenue Employees of Tamil Nadu has announced that they will not cooperate with SIR duties from tomorrow, stating that the workload has become unbearable.

Many employees say they already handle a range of responsibilities, including land records, revenue recovery, welfare schemes, and disaster-related work, and that the SIR assignments are being added on top of their regular duties.

According to them, the constant pressure to meet short deadlines has caused excessive mental stress and has made normal office work difficult to manage.

At the same time, reports from various districts show that anganwadi centres have been badly affected. With more than 50,000 anganwadi staff statewide deployed for SIR tasks, several centres have been functioning with only one worker or have had to drastically cut down teaching and child-care activities.


In some places, both the worker and the helper have been assigned election-related duties, leaving young children without proper supervision. Parents have complained that their children’s safety and nutrition are being compromised because staff are busy answering voter-related calls or meeting BLO supervisors.

Employee associations point out that they have raised concerns about workload and working conditions several times in the past year, but their grievances have not been fully addressed.

They argue that the current SIR exercise has pushed the system to its breaking point and forced them to consider non-cooperation as the only way to make the government listen. – TWL Bureau