Date:23/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/23/stories/2008032350020100.htm

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State to be asked to release Rs. 55 cr. towards election expenditure

T.S. Ranganna

CEO will be writing to the Government in this regard on Monday

There are over 40,000 polling booths across the 224 Assembly segments
The Government spent Rs. 42 crore for the Assembly elections in 2004

Bangalore: With the Election Commission announcing polls to the Legislative Assembly, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has prepared an estimate of the expenditure for conducting the elections. The State Government will be asked to release Rs. 55 crore towards expenses for the elections that will be held in May. According to sources in the commission, the CEO is sending a letter along with the estimates to the Principal Secretary (Finance) on Monday.

The estimates contain details such as the expenditure for transportation and travelling allowances of the presiding officers for over 40,000 polling booths across the 224 Assembly constituencies. Half the amount will be spent on transportation.

Quoting the election rules, the sources said it was the duty of the State Government concerned to meet the expenditure for holding elections to the Legislative Assembly. Stationery, food to be supplied to the large number of personnel, and fuel are other important heads of expenditure, they added.

However, this sum would not include the expenses to be incurred on the police personnel deputed for maintaining law and order during the poll period. The State Government would have to make separate provision for that, the sources said.

The Government spent Rs. 42 crore for the Assembly elections in 2004. This year, there is likely to be an increase of around 20 per cent. There is no dearth of electronic voting machines (EVMs). There are 65,000 EVMs against the requirement of around 50,000.

To a question on the expenditure incurred for the revision of electoral rolls, the sources said that the Centre and the State shared the costs. They said that the deputy commissioners might not be able to take up printing of photo-identity cards to be distributed to the voters, though they had been instructed to do that.

The reason for not taking it seriously this time was that they had been overburdened with the work of re-drawing the boundaries of the delimited Assembly constituencies and revision of electoral rolls. This might not be taken up till October.

However, 62 per cent of the voters had already been supplied with the photo ID cards.

Meanwhile, the correct boundary of each of the new 224 Assembly constituencies as approved by the Kuldip Singh Commission, the villages and areas that come under them along with the number of voters will be formally announced on March 29 by the CEO. The constituency-wise electoral rolls will also be published the same day.

Unlike in the previous elections, there would be eight Assembly constituencies for each Lok Sabha constituency. The total number of constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Assembly has been increased from 36 to 51.