Kolkata: The Election Commission has enhanced the honorarium for the polling personnel to be deployed for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
"There will be a substantial hike in honorarium for the polling personnel this time and the entire payment will be credited directly to their bank accounts," Assistant Chief Electoral Officer Amitjyoti Bhattacharya said here on Friday.
Elaborating this, Bhattacharya said each presiding officer would get an honorarium of Rs 1,600, up from Rs 1,100 plus a contingency amount of Rs 300 this time and each polling officer would get an honorarium of Rs 1,150, up from Rs 800 for election duty.
State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sunil Gupta and other officials yesterday held a video conference with district magistrates to discuss issues related to deployment and welfare of over four lakh polling personnel for over 70,000 polling booths.
Speaking about welfare of the polling personnel, Bhattacharya said, "Self Help Groups have already been asked to arrange for their food, while the PHE department would arrange for drinking water."
A large number of model polling stations would be set up statewide, which would have Voters` Assistance Booths (VAB), Officer on Special Duty in the CEO`s office Amit Roy Chowdhury said.
"Under partnership initiative between the School Education and Higher Education departments and the EC, school children would decorate the model polling stations in the districts of Coochbehar, South Dinajpur, Nadia and Hooghly with a slogan `Let us make our polling stations beautiful`," Roy Chowdhury said.
In North Dinajpur district, polling personnel would be provided with welfare kits on an experimental basis, he said.
Meanwhile, officials in the state administration have seized huge quantity of spirit, country liquor and materials required to prepare country liquor from the districts of Darjeeling and Hooghly, Roy Chowdhury added.
