LSG polls: Cost Rs 60 crore

Thiruvananthapuram: When all the arrangements s for the civic polls are nearing completion, Rs 60 crore would be surged from the state exchequer as the cost for the same. Apart from that there is no specific account of money being spent by political parties. The cost of election is high in LSG polls where the polls are being conducted in more than 21,000 wards. During the 2006 assembly election, the cost was Rs 24 crore and the parliament election in 2007 incurred a cost of Rs 35 crore. Among the 60 crore, Rs 16 crore is for deploying police and for security arrangements. It is the state election commission which has to spend the money for police force from outside states. Other is cost for vehicles with sticker `election urgent'. There is no special account of vehicles being running on election duty. It is the duty of district collectors to arrange the vehicles for each district. The money will be given to them in advance. Vehicles are required for transfer of ballot papers from and to the polling booths. In one district, a minimum of 500 vehicles are being running.

The cost of printing of 5.75 crore ballot paper is another one. 75, 00 voting machines were brought from Andhra Pradhesh and costs of its arrangements are other. As many as 2.66 government employees are being deployed for election duty too.






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