Learning from inconveniences caused by random posting outside home constituencies during the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission has finally decided to exempt women employees on assembly election duty from such postings. This means that the women employees on election duty would be posted in their own Lok Sabha constituency, thus limiting their possible spread to six assembly constituencies instead of 20 earlier.

Around 17,000 of the 32,000 state government employees in Pune who are put on election duty are women. And this means that only around 15,000 male employees in the city will be available for random postings during the assembly polls. “Women on poll duty have been exempted from randomisation. This, however, is not applicable to the male employees and they will have to travel to constituencies far from their own on election duty,” said Debashish Chakraborty, chief electoral officer, Maharashtra.

This follows an earlier decision to exempt physically-challenged individuals and pregnant women. “We had sent an application to the Election Commission to exempt women from randomisation. Though we were informed that the request has been approved, we are yet to receive the orders,” said Varsha Untwal, deputy collector, Election Commission, Pune division.

This newspaper had highlighted the inconveniences caused to women on election duty owing to randomisation.

The training for those on election duty is likely to begin on September 27. “The tentative dates for the three training schedules are September 27, October 2 and October 11. A majority of employees on election duty also could not vote. With this decision, the percentage of non-voters will hopefully come down. We will also be distributing forms for postal voting during the training,” said Pradeep Patil, electoral officer-in-charge of registration and foodgrain distribution.