Friday, March 07, 2014: India’s Election Commission has placed orders with Electronics Corporation of India Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd to deliver electronic voting machine (EVMs) for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The whole order is estimated to cost over Rs 3 billion.
According to an Indian Express report, EC is in need of 160,000 EVMs for the Lok Sabha elections to be held in April and May. It placed the order for 250,000 controlling units and nearly 400,000 ballot units with ECIL Hyderabad and BEL Bangalore. The order is divided on a half-and-half basis and the delivery is expected to be completed by this month-end.
EVM will consist of one controlling unit and one ballot unit. The price is yet to be fixed by the finance ministry, while the orders were placed with a tentative costing of Rs 10,500 per EVM. The law ministry will have to send a request to the finance ministry for the price estimation, as report suggests that 30 per cent of the total order has already been supplied to the Election Commission.
ECIL has confirmed that the company received the orders for 191,000 ballot units and 125,000 controlling units. The PSU has supplied 740,000 EVMs to the EC so far, since its introduction in the poll process.
