The first phase of training for 7,212 teachers on election-related work was organised by the district administrations in Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Ranipet and Tirupattur at government schools and community centres on Monday as part of the upcoming urban local bodies elections that will be held on February 19.
With the model code of conduct coming into force after the announcement of the local bodies elections, the administrations led by the Collectors have been reviewing poll preparedness in the districts. Monday’s training session for teachers is also a continuation of such poll-related exercises by the district administrations.
These teachers will be mainly deployed as polling booth officials on February 19. A total of 42 local bodies, consisting of 16 municipalities, 25 town panchayats and one corporation (Vellore City Corporation), will go to polls.
In Tiruvannamalai, Collector B. Murugesh inspected the training sessions that were held for 1,647 teachers.
“A total of 1,254 teachers were given training in the district. They were also asked to follow COVID-19 norms strictly during the election work,” said Amar Kushwaha, Collector, Tirupattur, after inspecting the Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Jolarpet, where one of the training sessions was held. Divided into seven panchayat unions, including Katpadi, Anaicut and Gudiyatham, Vellore district has more than 15,000 teachers, and a portion of them were trained to perform election work on Monday. Training in Vellore, the biggest among the four districts in terms of total polling booths (2,326 booths), was held at all urban local bodies that will hold polls on February 19.
In Ranipet, 1,984 teachers were trained to work in 411 polling booths in its seven panchayat unions, including Arakkonam, Walajah, Arcot, Ranipet and Sholinghur.
Tirupattur district, which comprises of six panchayat unions, has 347 polling booths for the upcoming local bodies elections.
