ECI approves Rs 6,000 honorarium to BLOs and supervisors for SIR
The Election Commission of India has approved a one-time honorarium of Rs 6,000 to each Booth Level Officer and BLO Supervisor engaged in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. This amount will be given in addition to their annual remuneration, recognising the volume and nature of work involved in the ongoing door-to-door enumeration exercise, according to a letter dated July 14, 2026, signed by ECI Secretary Pawan Diwan.
The letter, bearing reference number 23/BLO/2026-ERS, has been addressed to the Chief Electoral Officers of 22 states and Union Territories: Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, NCT of Delhi, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, and Uttarakhand. All have been directed to bring the instruction to the notice of all concerned for compliance.
The honorarium is described as a one-time grant, separate from the BLOs’ annual remuneration. The Special Intensive Revision is a large-scale door-to-door exercise in which Booth Level Officers visit every household in their assigned area to verify existing voter details, help residents enrol, and identify electors who have died, permanently moved, or are registered at multiple addresses. The enumeration phase runs from June 30 to July 29, 2026, with BLOs required to return to homes found locked on the first visit at least three more times.
In Delhi alone, more than 13,000 BLOs have been deployed across 13 districts to cover the capital’s electorate of 1.45 crore voters. As of July 5, the cumulative distribution of enumeration forms in Delhi had already crossed 62 lakh, representing over 42 percent of the city’s total electorate. The pace of work, conducted largely in the monsoon heat through residential lanes and housing colonies, represents a significant operational undertaking for the ground-level election machinery. The honorarium decision reflects the Election Commission’s acknowledgment that the SIR exercise demands a level of effort from BLOs that goes beyond their routine electoral roll maintenance duties. BLOs are typically Government employees, teachers, or other officials assigned polling booth responsibilities in addition to their regular work.
The intensive enumeration phase of SIR requires sustained field presence across an extended period, making the additional payment a recognition of that extraordinary workload.
Following the close of the enumeration phase on July 29, the draft electoral roll will be published on August 5. Citizens will be able to file claims and objections until September 4, with final disposal of applications by October 3 and publication of the final electoral roll on October 7. The qualifying date for the revision is October 1, 2026.
