EC's proposal to extend the duration of the ongoing EVM project

The Election Commission (EC) has asked for a new Rs 40 crore for the storage rent and maintenance of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). At the same time, the company wants to extend the project by one year. For this, the EC has sent the project amendment proposal to the Planning Commission. This information is known from related sources.

EC officials said that 1 lakh 54 thousand EVMs were purchased before the 10th National Assembly elections in 2018. However, due to lack of preparation at that time, the device was used in only six seats.

Besides, in the last four years EC conducted voting in local elections and by-elections with those machines. In this case, what is stored in various schools, colleges, election offices at the field level. Apart from the loss of some machines, it also becomes unusable.

National Assembly

• Meanwhile, as the 12th National Assembly election is approaching, the organization proposed to the government to take a new project of 8 thousand 711 crore 44 lakh rupees with the plan of voting in maximum 150 seats. In this case, if three and a half lakh machines are available, it is decided to use EVM in half of the seats. However, if the new project is not passed, the EC also has the idea of using the machines of the ongoing project in as many seats as possible.

On January 22, when the government decided not to 'process the proposal for the time being', the EC took a policy decision to proceed with the ongoing project. And accordingly, it is thought to propose to the government to extend the duration of the project.

EVM project

• According to the amendment proposal of the project, 80 thousand EVM sets of Election Commission are being stored in Bangladesh Tools Factory (BMTF) as there is no alternative system. BMTF has claimed 97 lakh 50 thousand per month for reservation rent. Accordingly, the rent from June 2019 to the last period of the project, i.e. till June 2023, will be Tk 46 crore 93 lakh. BMTF continues to insist on payment of rent. But as the original DPP of the project did not have any section related to rent of warehouse, it has not been possible to pay the amount demanded by BMTF so far. For this reason it is necessary to amend the original DPP of the project and add the rental sector.
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When asked about the status of some EVMs that had become unusable, the project director said that the manufacturing company Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory (BMTF) has prepared 20,000. Will give another 25 thousand.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Habibul Awal has already told the media how many constituencies can be voted on EVMs from the ongoing project. He said, we have not decided yet whether it will be 50, 40 or 30 in the EVMs we have. If the machines we have are working we are doing QC, we can select as many as possible. But we are not sure, first we need to know how many EVM machines are correct.

However, other election commissioners said that from the ongoing project, as many as 70 constituencies will be able to vote on EVMs.