Dev project proposal: EC sets EVM price without market study
The Election Commission has fixed the price of Electronic Voting Machines in the development project proposal without evaluating the market price.
The constitutional body, that regulates the election, formed a committee to assess the market price of EVMs while preparing the proposal, with an aim to purchase two lakh machines.
The committee, however, only visited websites of different election commissions of countries where EVMs are used.
"But it didn't find the prices of EVMs in the websites," said the DPP for the project titled "Increasing the use of EVM in elections and its sustainable management."
The project is worth Tk 8,711.44 crore.
It further said the EVMs used in Bangladesh have no similarity with those used in other countries.
The committee then asked Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory (BMTF), the country's lone EVM supplier, to send their EVM pricing, based on which it fixed the price in the DPP,said the document, a copy of which was obtained by this newspaper.
A member of the committee told The Daily Star it is not possible to assess the market price of EVMs, as hardly any company that manufactures the machine shares its information.
Election Commissioner Md Alamgir, said, "There is no scope of assessing the market price of something when there is only a single source. For example, you cannot evaluate the price of patrol, you have to abide by the price fixed by the government."
According to the DPP, one EVM machine with all its accessories would cost Tk 3.33 lakh -- more than 10 times what India paid to obtain its EVMs.
An EVM in India costs about Rs 20,000, said an EC official, preferring anonymity.
Besides, the price stated in the DPP is also higher than what the EC had spent on EVMs on previous occasions. When the EC bought 1.5 lakh EVMs from BMTF in 2018, each machine with accessories cost Tk 2.3 lakh, the official said.
Some of the EVMs were bought without accessories at the base price of $2,487 that year. The base price (Tk 2,73,570 with the dollar rate at Tk 110) is the same this year.
"This time, the price of an EVM was higher due to the appreciation of the dollar. BMTF maintains a similar base price, but cost increased due to adjustment with the dollar," said Alamgir.
With the Jatiya Sangsad polls likely in late December 2023 or early January 2024, the EVM issue came to the fore especially after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at an AL meeting on May 7 said voting machines would be used in all 300 constituencies in the election.
The move to buy the additional EVMs comes following the EC's August 23 decision to go for electronic voting in up to 150 constituencies in the polls, despite objections from major opposition parties like the BNP and Jatiya Party (Ershad).
The EC has 1.5 lakh EVMs that can be used in 70-80 constituencies simultaneously in the next polls.
Against this backdrop, the EC sent the DPP to the Planning Commission in late October.
Introduced in 2010, EVMs were used in various local government elections. The then Election Commission, led by ATM Shamsul Huda, had used them in the city corporation polls but not in any parliamentary election.
In 2012, the EC, headed by Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, also kept the EVMs out of the national polls.
The Nurul Huda-led commission overhauled the EVM system and used it for polling in six constituencies in the 2018 December national election.
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