The people employed at Chilume, the private entity which covertly collected personal data from voters, paid most of its workers’ salaries and incentives in cash. TNM spoke to five workers employed by Chilume Educational Cultural and Rural Development Institute, which was involved in mapping out the houses in various wards in Bengaluru. The workers hailing from various parts of the city were lured with the promise of Rs 25,000 per month for drawing detailed maps of various areas in the city. “We were promised Rs 25,000 each month as salary and Rs 2 as an incentive for each property we mapped,” one worker who had joined as a supervisor two months earlier, told TNM.
“We had to map a minimum of 300 houses each day in order to get our salary,” he said. While some workers received their salaries and incentives in cash, others weren’t paid their monthly salary at all. “Even though I worked continuously, I haven’t received any salary. They paid the incentives in cash every Saturday, so I didn’t worry about not being paid,” he said. Another supervisor said that he was paid both the salary and incentives in cash only. The police confirmed to TNM that they had found cash counting machines at the Chilume office in Malleswaram during their raid. But this was not the only mode of payment they chose. Another employee TNM spoke to, said he was paid his salary of Rs 20,000 through Google Pay. The amount was credited to him from a personal bank account.
While some workers were hired through sub-contractors, others were referred to by their friends. These supervisors hired by Chilume were mostly educated men looking for a job in Bengaluru. Swastik* (name changed), who recently completed his civil engineering degree, was looking for a job when he was referred to a ‘trust’. Unaware that he would be made to impersonate government officials to carry out illegal mapping surveys, he took up the job. “I didn’t even know the name of the NGO. I had loans to pay, so I took the job,” he said. According to him, the NGO hired only educated people as supervisors as they already knew how to draw and map houses. “Our training period was less than two days,” he said. Others like the field workers employed through a sub-contractor with false promises to cover the rent of PG they were staying in, were not paid a single penny and were left to fend themselves at the PG accommodations.
The supervisors were first trained at an office rented by Chilume in Chickpet ward and were sent out to map houses. They said that they carried out the mapping by impersonating BBMP employees. “We wore BBMP ID cards and drew out detailed maps of various properties located in Chickpet. I drafted eight to nine maps in Chickpet and was later moved to Hongasandra ward,” said a supervisor. The maps accessed by TNM show areas and houses the workers had surveyed. “Recently we were sent to Hongasandra for mapping out areas when the news of illegality came out,” he said.
TNM also found that Ravikumar, the director of Chilume, had registered the Digital Sameeksha app under his name and his GST number. The application was used by field workers of the NGO for collecting voters’ data. They uploaded voters’ personal information into Digital Sameeksha, including caste, religion, mother tongue, education, marital status and political grievances.