₹4,555 cr needed for ‘imminent’ parallel elections: Law panel

NEWDELHI: The Law Commission has said over ₹4,500 crore will be needed to buy new electronic voting machine (EVM) and paper trail machines for “imminent” simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

In its draft report on simultaneous polls issued last week, the law panel quoted the Election Commission as saying that around 10,60,000 polling stations will be set up for the 2019 polls.

“It (EC) further informed that as of now there is a shortfall of about 12.9 lakh ballot units, 9.4 lakh control units and about 12.3 lakh VVPATS (voter verifiable paper audit trail machines or paper trail machines), if simultaneous elections are to be held,” the report read.

According to the report, an electronic voting machine (EVM), which includes a control unit (CU), a ballot unit (BU) and a VVPAT, costs about₹33,200.

“Thus, the EC has informed that an expenditure of about ₹4,555 crore will be incurred on procurement of EVMS for an imminent simultaneous election,” the draft report read.

Keeping in mind the average shelf life of 15 years of an EVM, the Law Commission said that at the prevailing rates, ₹1,751.17 crore for conduct of the second simultaneous elections in 2024 and ₹2,017.93 crore for the third simultaneous elections in 2029 will be required for procuring EVMS.