On the fast-sinking Ghoramara island in the Sundarbans, four dedicated Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are engaged in a race against time and nature. Their mission is to complete a Special Intensive Review (SIR) of 3,575 voters and upload the data by the December 4 deadline, a formidable task on a landmass with no electricity and a highly unreliable mobile network.
A Sinking Battleground
This electoral exercise is the latest challenge for one of the Bay of Bengal's last outposts. The island, situated on the Muriganga delta, is disappearing at an alarming rate. Over the past 27 years, it has shrunk from 120 square kilometers to a mere 4.2 square kilometers. This rapid erosion has been exacerbated by a series of devastating cyclones—Bulbul in November 2019, Amphan in May 2020, and Yaas in May 2021. These natural disasters have forced a significant number of valid voters to migrate to the mainland or to other states, making the BLOs' task of tracking them down immensely difficult.
Burning the Midnight Oil
The four BLOs have adopted unique and arduous strategies to overcome the technological black hole.
Dilip Samanta, a teacher at Roypara Junior Basic School since 2010, has been assigned 1,152 islanders from the highly erosion-prone villages of Hatkhola, Chunpuri, and Roypara. Living in Sonarpur, he has managed to visit his family only once since the process began on November 4. With no electricity and scant internet, he depends entirely on the solar-powered Wi-Fi at the island's panchayat office to upload the precious data.
Kingshuk Mondal, a teacher from East Midnapore who serves 986 islanders, discovered that the island's only high-speed broadband connection stabilizes late at night. Consequently, he has been working from 11 pm until 3 am for the past several days. To save precious time, he has been staying at his school in Ghoramara instead of his rented room in Kakdwip. His relentless effort has resulted in the digitization of 780 forms so far.
Ingenuity in Isolation
Srijan Pattanayak, a tech-savvy 37-year-old teacher, has nearly completed uploading data for his 722 voters. After initial struggles that forced him to travel to the mainland, he found an unlikely solution. "Luckily, I found that the roof of our school premises, particularly the riverside end, has better net connectivity," Pattanayak said. This discovery allowed him to complete most of the daunting task using just his cellphone.
For Mohanlal Jana, a native of Ghoramara, the struggle is twofold. He faces severe app-related issues compounded by poor connectivity. He still has 75 forms to collect, with about 35 of those voters having already shifted elsewhere.
The situation is equally challenging for Subodh Das, who covers most of Khasimara and Baghpara—areas that have lost major landmass to river erosion. "We are racing against time," he stated, noting that 69 voters who have gone missing or relocated are yet to be confirmed.
An attempt to bring solar- and wind-powered electricity to 650 families last November failed due to technical issues, leaving the island in darkness since January, as confirmed by local farmer Sk Farooq Ahamed. This blackout underscores the immense challenges these public servants face in upholding democratic processes in one of India's most vulnerable and environmentally critical regions.
