511 crores for upcoming assembly elections?
The Election Commission has predicted that the cost of the upcoming assembly elections will be Rs 511 crore and according to that the average cost of electing an MLA will be more than Rs 2.2 crore. However, while the cost of each constituency may vary according to its size and number of polling stations, it will be less than Rs 2 crore, Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena told the media recently.
The Election Commission had spent around 394 crores during the 2018 assembly elections. 1.75 crore was spent on an average for each constituency. In 2013, about Rs 160 crore was spent on an average of Rs 65 lakh per constituency. Due to price hike and inflation, the cost of voting machines and infrastructure is increasing enormously. But still the cost of each constituency will be less than 2 crores. Our total demand is around Rs 511 crore. The state government had earmarked 300 crores in the supplementary budget during the legislative session in Belgaum in December last year for election preparations. The remaining Rs 211 crore will be sanctioned in the coming budget, Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Meena said while speaking in Bangalore.
Stating that more than 45 percent of the total budget will be spent on polling day expenses including transport, Meena said besides conducting voter awareness campaign, printing of voter lists and EPIC cards, remuneration of polling staff and election observers would be other tasks. This is to be expected as the prices of consumer goods have risen sharply in relation to major factor polling. Apart from this, the number of constituencies and polling stations has also increased to some extent. Manoj Kumar Meena also explained that there will be other huge expenses on staff training, EVM awareness and EVM transport, strong room arrangements, and counting day expenses.
