WITH JUST months to go for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the government has sought Parliament’s approval to spend an additional Rs 3,147.92 crore on the exercise and electronic voting machines (EVMs), taking the total proposed expenditure on the polls to over Rs 5,000 crore. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the first batch of supplementary demand for grants for 2023-2024 in the Lok Sabha on December 6 for a total additional expenditure of Rs 1.29 lakh crore. Of that, Rs 3,147.92 crore was proposed for the Law Ministry to fund election-related expenses and Rs 73.67 crore for the Election Commission for administrative expenses. As per the supplementary demand for grants for the Law Ministry, the government proposed spending Rs 2,536.65 crore for “clearing the liability of Government of India’ share towards election-related expenditure”, Rs 36.20 crore for “testing and maintenance of EVMs procured for ensuing Lok Sabha elections, 2024”, and Rs 575.07 crore for “procurement of EVMs for conducting Lok Sabha elections, 2024.” Once passed by Parliament, this would be in addition to the amount allocated to the Law Ministry for election-related expenses (Rs 2,183.78 crore) in the Budget Estimates for 2023-2024, taking the total proposed expenditure on the Lok Sabha elections to Rs 5,331.7 crore. In the Union Budget presented in February, the government had allocated Rs 1,891.78 crore for EVMs, Rs 180 crore for “Lok Sabha elections”, Rs 18 crore for voter ID cards and Rs 94 crore for “other election expenses”. From 2019 till October 2023, the EC had placed two orders for a total of 13.26 lakh ballot units and 9.09 lakh of control units of EVMs, and 8.92 lakh of VVPATs with the two EVM manufacturers — Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) — for a total cost of Rs 3,950.31 crore, according to EC documents obtained by The Indian Express under Right to Information. According to previous Budget documents, the actual expenditure on elections and EVMs in 2017-2018, 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 was a total of Rs 8,656.41 crore. The expenditure on the 2014, 2009 and 2004 elections had been Rs 3,870.34 crore, Rs 1,114.38 crore and Rs 1,016.08 crore respectively, according to a reply from the government in the Rajya Sabha on July 4, 2019.
