NEW DELHI : Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda has urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to help expedite the approval for buying nearly 14 lakh new electronic voting machines (EVMs) so the Election Commission has sufficient equipment by 2019, when the next Lok Sabha elections are due.
Gowda has written to Jaitley recently requesting him to speed up the proposal pending before a committee on non-plan expenditure headed by Secretary Expenditure in the Finance Ministry.
The Election Commission wants to purchase nearly 14 lakh new EVMs as over nine lakh machines in use now are nearing end of their 15-year life span.
A senior official said two government undertakings — Bharat Electronics Ltd, Bangalore and Electronic Corporation of India Ltd, Hyderabad will not be in a position to produce new EVMs in one go and would provide it to the Commission in batches.
“The sooner we start the better. The machines EC gets in batches can be used in coming assembly polls and by the time the next Lok Sabha polls are due, the delivery will be completed,” he said.
The EC had once again flagged the issue of new EVMs at a meeting between Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi and top Law Ministry officials here on January 5.
“The purchase has to be made in batches over a period of time as the manufacturing firms have limitation to the production capacity…CEC also wrote to Law Minister,” a statement issued by EC on January 7 said.
The Law Ministry has given its “in principle” approval for buying new EVMs.
In a proposal sent to the Law Ministry, the Commission had said 9,30,430 EVMs in use today would become “outdated” between 2015-16 and 2019-20.
It has moved a proposal to buy 13,95,648 new balloting units and 9,30,432 control units at an estimated cost of Rs 5511.48 crore between financial years 2015-16 and 2018-19.
An EVM consists of a control unit and a balloting unit
connected by a five-meter cable.
The control unit is with the presiding officer and the balloting unit is placed inside the voting compartment to allow voters cast their vote by pressing the blue button against the candidate of their choice.
In 1989-90 one control unit, one balloting unit and one alkaline battery used to cost Rs 5,500. Today the cost is pegged at about Rs 20,000, an EC official said.
The EVMs were first used in an assembly bypoll in May, 1982 but the absence of a specific law prescribing its use led to the Supreme Court striking it down.
The Representation of the People Act, 1951 was amended by Parliament in 1989 to provide for the use of EVMs. But a general consensus on introducing it could be reached only in 1998. Since then EVMs are in use.
EVMs can cater to a maximum of 64 candidates. There is provision for 16 candidates in a balloting unit. If the total number of candidates exceeds 16, a second balloting unit can be linked parallel to the first. If the number of candidates exceeds 32, a third balloting unit can be attached and if the total number of candidates goes beyond 48, a fourth unit can be attached to cater to a maximum of 64 candidates.
In case the number of candidates goes beyond 64 in any constituency, EVMs cannot be used and the conventional method of voting by means of ballot box and ballot paper will have to be adopted. (AGENCIES)
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