‘Overburdened’ bank employees demand exemption from poll duty in Uttarakhand

DEHRADUN: The Uttarakhand Bank Employees' Union on Tuesday wrote to the election commission seeking exemption of bank employees from election duty. The bank employees' union has made this demand citing that most of the bank employees are overloaded with work, more so considering the backlog of work generated post the demonetisation move and it will not be fair if the services of bank employees are used in the election duty.
The general secretary of the Uttarakhand Bank Employees' Union, Jagmohan Mendiratta, told TOI, "We have written to the election commission for excusing the bank employees from election duty.Some are to be engaged during the election time while some during counting. The only reason why we asked for the bank employees to be excused was because there is much work in bank these days which cannot wait for the elections to complete, plus till date, extra work generated due to demonetisation is pending."
The bank employees cite that with such a heavy work-load, they also need time for their families besides ensuring their work in banks is completed in time and claimed that there are many other central and state government employees who can be asked to help out in the election duties instead of them.
It is learnt that, the women employees are being exempted from joining election duties at some places, besides only those with unavoidable reasons.
Almost 3000-4000 bank employees are likely to be roped in for election duty this time and majority of them are not willing to take on the responsibility.
It is also learnt that before the state goes to poll on February 15, on January 21 and February 1, training for election duty is likely to be be held in Haridwar and Roorkee districts, while in places like Almora, Rudrapur and Kashipur, the plan is to rope them during the counting of votes.
"I have not got any intimation regarding the same but if I am called for election duty, even if I do not wish to, I will have to go. It is just not the bank employees, the PSU staff, teachers all will be cooperating. But having said that, we have exerted ourselves since November first week when demonetisation was announced and banking work might suffer, if we are asked to instead go on election duty", said a Doon based bank employee.