'Rs 4,555 cr needed to buy EVMs for 'imminent' simultaneous polls'

New Delhi: The Law Commission has said over Rs 4,500 crore will be needed to purchase new EVMs and paper trail machines for "imminent" simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.

In its draft report on simultaneous polls issued last week, the law panel quoted the Election Commission as saying that around 10,60,000 polling stations will be set up for the 2019 general elections.

"It (EC) further informed that as of now there is a shortfall of about 12.9 lakh ballot units, 9.4 lakh control units and about 12.3 lakh VVPATs (voter-verifiable paper audit trail machines or paper trail machines) if simultaneous elections are to be held," the report read.

According to it, an electronic voting machine (EVM), which includes a control unit (CU), a ballot unit (BU) and a VVPAT, costs about Rs 33,200.

"Thus, the EC has informed that an expenditure of about Rs 4,555 crore will be incurred on the procurement of EVMs for an imminent simultaneous election," the draft report read.