The Election Commission is alive to the interest of the employees engaged in election duty. The commission has decided to give compensation to the polling staff members who might meet with an accident during their election duty. Different amounts of compensation have been fixed for accidents of different nature. For this purpose, the election duties have also been defined.

The Election Commission had presented this proposal in detail to Union Law and Justice Ministry for perusal and recommendation. In reply, the ministry has said that as soon as an employee leaves his house or office for election work, he will be deemed on election duty. Any accident that might occur after that will be deemed as a mishap occurring during the election duty. Attending poll training programme has also been described as part of the election duty.

In case of an employee's death during election duty, next of his kin will be paid Rs 50 thousand. In case of total incapacitation due to accident during the election duty, the affected employee will get Rs 20 thousand while Rs 10 thousand will be given to partially injured employee on election duty. The payment of compensation will be made by the concerning district election officer (collector) after sanction by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer and Union Law and Justice Ministry. The compensation will be given from head of election. It will also be taken care of that the kin of a deceased employee does not get more than Rs 10 lakh as total compensation and relief from different sources.

For claiming compensation against death of an employee during election duty, his kin will have to produce copies of FIR registered with the concerning police station, death certificate, post-mortem report, validity certificate of the successor, election duty order issued by a competent authority etc. In case of injury, the affected employee will have to produce copy of FIR of accident, medical and discharge certificates etc.