1.5 Lakh evms bought since 2018: 40,000 unrepairable

GBNEWS24DESK//

The Election Commission has bought 1.5 lakh EVMs in phases since 2018 at Tk 2.35 lakh each, almost 11 times the price available in India.

Now, around five years later, 40,000 of those machines are beyond repair while the rest 1.1 lakh can be fixed but that requires around Tk 1,260 crore, according to a proposal from Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory (BMTF).

Officials of the machine tools factory placed the proposal seeking the amount at a meeting with the chief election commissioner and commissioners on Thursday.

The control units, monitors, batteries and cables of the EVMs are now non-functional as those were carelessly stacked up either at field-level election offices or schoolrooms, several EC officials said.

“They [BMTF officials] sought the money to refurbish the EVMs to make them useable. Refurbishment means they need to change batteries, cables, timers and other parts,” EC Additional Secretary Ashok Kumar Debnath told The Daily Star yesterday.

Contacted, Election Commissioner Brig Gen (Retd) Ahsan Habib Khan said they were in discussion with the BMTF, the lone manufacturer of the electronic voting machines that the commission uses.

“They [BMTF officials] emphasised the need for refurbishment of EVMs. The commission is considering their proposal. The commission will take a decision, subject to financial matters,” Ahsan Habib added.

The EC in August 2022 started stocktaking and assessing the EVMs as it decided to use machines in the highest 150 constituencies in the next general polls likely to be held early January 2024.

At that time, the EC officials said they would be able to hold the elections to 70-80 constituencies with EVMs and would need to procure more if they were to use them in up to 150 seats.

Accordingly, the EC prepared a project involving Tk 8,711 crore to buy 2 lakh new EVMs.

But the government this January shelved the project, forcing the commission to reconsider its plan to use the machines in up to 150 constituencies in the next general polls.

A presentation made at an internal EC workshop in early September 2022 said there were 93,000 EVMs at EC’s field offices and schoolrooms in districts and upazilas across the country.