BLOs interact with members of nomadic communities in Yaragatti village in Belagavi district of Karnataka.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Members of some nomadic tribes in Belagavi district are facing difficulties in registering their names in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Karnataka. They have been shifting between various towns and villages, and do not have proper documents about their address or where they voted last. Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are advising them to go to the districts where they lived in 2002, the last time an SIR was conducted.BLOs met some members of the Durugmurgi and Abbepari communities in Yaragatti on Bagalkot road. They found that none of them could read or write. “A lot of them do not have any of the documents that could serve as proof of residence. Some have never enrolled as voters. They do not have Elector Picture Identity Cards. Some do not even have Aadhaar cards,” an officer on SIR duty told The Hindu.“Some live in tin shed houses built on farm land, and some in huts along the highway. They take up odd jobs, like farm labour, bartering toys in exchange for human hair, caring for slippers outside temples, or begging. They seem to be more worried about losing ration cards than about not having EPIC cards. We had to explain that non-inclusion in the electoral rolls could lead to stoppage of government benefits,” another officer said.
