EVM procurement, management: EC finalises massive Tk 8,711cr project
The Election Commission yesterday finalised Tk 8,711 crore project for purchasing two lakh electronic voting machines and their management.
Its development project proposal (DPP) has fixed $2,487 as the base price of an EVM and, according to this, at least half a billion dollars will be needed to procure the machines.
Another Tk 25,000 to Tk 30,000 will be needed for accessories per machine, said officials involved in preparing the project proposal.
In total, a full-fledged EVM machine will cost Tk 3.05 lakh and about Tk 6,000 crore will be needed to buy two lakh EVM.
The commission in a statement yesterday said a meeting approved a project worth Tk 8,711.44 crore, titled "increasing the use of EVM in elections and its sustainable management".
Under the project, two lakh EVMs will be procured for electronic voting in maximum 150 parliamentary seats during the upcoming 12th national polls, the statement said.
The EC currently has 1.5 lakh EVMs that can be used in 70-80 constituencies at one go in the next polls.
After the meeting yesterday, Election Commissioner Md Alamgir told reporters that they undertook the project as they would need more EVMs if they want to use the machines in 150 seats.
"We had asked the [EC] secretariat to prepare a DPP and it was finalised in the meeting. We will send it to the Planning Commission for approval," Alamgir said, without taking any questions.
In another briefing on Sunday, Election Commissioner Rashida Sultana said the cost of the project also covers building warehouses to preserve EVMs, creation of skilled manpower and their training.
"We don't take up projects every day…. The government will allocate money according to its capacity. We don't think the government lacks the capacity," she said.
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 ruling Awami League and some of its alliance partners are in favour of the use of the machines.
At least 19 out of the 39 registered political parties that have joined or skipped talks with the EC, held between July 17 and July 31, directly opposed the use of EVMs in the polls.
THE PROJECT
The commission in 2018 bought EVMs, without some accessories, at the base price of $2,487.
It needed to pay Tk 86 per US dollar back then but the latest DPP mentioned Tk 110 as every dollar price because of taka devaluation, said an official involved with the project.
Last time, there was no value-added tax on the final price of the EVMs but this time there might be taxes, increasing the cost further, he told this correspondent.
Besides, the DPP of the five-year project proposed setting up 10 warehouses in 10 regions. Each warehouse will have fool-proof security, firefighting equipment and temperature control mechanism for the proper preservation of the around 45,000 EVMs.
The three-storey warehouses would be on 40 kathas of land with more than 60,000 square feet of space.
"We will need money to buy or acquire land and to have modern facilities to store the machines," EVM Project Director Syed Raquibul Hasan said in the first week of this month.
Besides, campaigns would be required to make people aware of EVM use and dispel misconceptions.
The DPP also proposed recruiting around 1,300 manpower and training. It recommended buying 534 pick-up vans and four jeeps for transporting the EVMs.
"EC needs to spend around Tk 55 crore each year to transport EVMs for elections, and that is why we proposed to have pick-up vans," said an official.
The commission is going to spend around $50 crore when the country is going through the dollar crisis. And the government has ordered many measures like postponing needless foreign trips of public servants to cut spending.
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.
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 election.
Twelve political parties, including the BNP, opposed the EVM while attending talks with the EC in 2017, and 11 parties including the AL supported it.