BENGALURU: In a significant move to ensure smooth and timely completion of the Special Intensive Review (SIR 2026) of electoral rolls, Chief Electoral Officer Anbukkumar has called for the temporary exemption of biometric and mobile app-based daily attendance registration for booth level officers (BLOs) and others involved in the exercise.
In a letter to Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh, Anbukkumar stated that fieldwork as part of the SIR is “of great urgency”. Officials and staff from various departments have been deputed for door-to-door verification of voters, registration of new voters and distribution of forms and collection across the state. They are now busy with field work. Due to this, attendance registration through biometric app or Karthavya Attendance has become difficult for them.
He asked the chief secretary to issue an instruction to the heads of all departments and deputy commissioners to grant temporary exemption to these officers and staff from the obligations of recording daily attendance till the completion of SIR.
During this period, their attendance is proposed to be registered by the electoral registration officials (ERO) based on the certificates issued by them. With thousands of staff deployed in the field from morning to night, the rigid attendance system is said to have created logistical challenges, forcing them to move between their workplaces and their parent departments to ensure their attendance is marked.
Government departments are now expected to issue orders at the earliest to ease the demand, allowing election staff to focus exclusively on SIR without any administrative hurdles.
