EC asks for Tk 3,954cr as polls expenses
The Election Commission has asked the government for Tk 3,954 crore to meet the expenses of the upcoming parliamentary and local government elections and repairing 1.1 lakh electronic voting machines.
Commission officials tabled a proposal in this regard at a meeting with the finance ministry and the planning commission yesterday, said officials.
The meeting was held at the Secretariat to discuss the EC's budget for 2023-24 fiscal year.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Additional Secretary of the EC Ashok Kumar Debnath said, "No final decision has been made in this regard. They [finance ministry] have advised the commission to make the proposal more specific."
Two meeting sources confirmed that the EC's proposal included Tk 1,260 crore for having 1.1 lakh EVMs repaired by Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory (BMTF).
According to the EC sources, the commission has asked for Tk 5,485 crore for the next fiscal year. Of the amount, Tk 3,954 crore would be needed for conducting the next general election, 6th upazila polls and several city corporation elections.
The next Jatiya Sangsad polls are likely to be held in late December this year or early January 2024.
The EC's budget for the 2022-23 fiscal is Tk 1,539 crore. Of the amount, Tk 229 crore is earmarked for conducting elections.
The commission since 2018 has bought 1.5 lakh EVMs in phases for Tk 2.35 lakh each, almost 11 times the price in India back then.
Now around five years later, 40,000 of those machines are beyond repair. The rest 1.1 lakh can be fixed for around Tk 1,260 crore, according to a BMTF proposal sent to EC on Thursday.
The EC in August last year started assessing the EVMs as it decided to use the machines in highest 150 constituencies. At that time, EC officials said they would be able to hold elections to 70-80 constituencies with the EVMs and that they would need to procure more machines if they were to use them in up to 150 seats.
Accordingly, the commission prepared a project involving Tk 8,711 crore to buy 2 lakh new EVMs. But the government in January shelved the project, forcing the commission to reconsider its plan.
An internal EC workshop in September 2022 was told that there were 93,000 EVMs at the commission's field offices and schools in districts and upazilas across the country. About 30 percent of those machines were unusable.
EVM project officials said 75,404 EVMs are stored now at field offices, 73,810 at BMTF and the rest at the EVM customisation centre.
So far, the quality checking of EVMs in five out of 10 EC regions has been completed.
A total of 43,624 mores were checked and 27,223 or 62 percent of them apparently need repairs.
At least 25,000 EVMs in five other regions may require repairs.
EC sources said that they usually need more money in the national election year than other years. From July 2023 to June 2024, the commission will also need to hold upazila polls in several phases.
Besides, the EC will have to conduct Gazipur City Corporation polls between March 11 and September 10, Khulna City Corporation and Rajshahi City Corporation elections between April 13 and October 10, Barishal City Corporation polls between May 14 and November 13, and Sylhet City Corporation elections between May 6 and November 5.
EC officials said Tk 700 crore was allocated for the last national polls held in December 2018. The figure was Tk 500 crore for the JS polls held in January 2014, but the commission needed to spend Tk 265 crore as 153 MPs were elected unopposed.