Hebbal and Karnataka Teachers Demand Relief from Special Intensive Revision Duty

Government school teachers in Hebbal and across Bengaluru have petitioned the Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer and District Election Officers to exempt them from the remaining phases of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, warning that ongoing election deployment has severely disrupted academic activities.

The appeal follows an order issued by an Additional District Election Officer on Wednesday, August 19, directing all Booth Level Officers (BLOs) and BLO Supervisors deployed for the SIR to continue their duties until the final electoral rolls are published on October 27. Similar directives were issued by election officials across the state, threatening disciplinary action for any dereliction of duty.

Teachers reported that the extended deployment has crippled classroom management for nearly two months. In Bengaluru, schools have been forced to merge multiple grades under single teachers, with some institutions asking academically strong students to oversee junior classes.

In one Bengaluru school with 103 students from classes 1 to 8, two of the three teachers were assigned to SIR duty, leaving the remaining staff member to combine classes 1 to 5 into a single room.

A government school teacher from Hebbal stated that he had recently met with an accident and asked officials to relieve him from SIR duty. Rather than being excused, he was warned of disciplinary action and ordered to continue working as a BLO.

The Hebbal teacher noted that students had spent the past month merely arriving at school for midday meals before leaving, adding that teachers will face heavy pressure later in the academic year to finish the syllabus and maintain exam results.

According to Chandrashekhar Nugli, president of the Government Primary School Teachers Association, approximately 70,000 government teachers were deployed across Karnataka for the exercise. He emphasized that because the enumeration phase concluded on August 17, teachers who have returned to schools should not be reassigned to further SIR duties.

BLOs also raised concerns regarding a lack of adequate training for the upcoming phases, which involve resolving logical discrepancies and unmapped voter records, while balancing strict deadlines and voter unfamiliarity with the revision process.