Mumbai civic body spends Rs90 crore on elections
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be spending about Rs90 crore on the elections to be held on February 21.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be spending about Rs90 crore on the elections to be held on February 21.
According to officials, the money will be spent on the entire election procedure — from setting up polling centres, transportation of electronic voting machines (EVMs), deputing surveillance squads, election-related advertisements and polling staff as well as the expenditure on the staff that will be handling the polling and counting of votes. These funds come from the taxpayers’ money, which again underlines the need for citizens to participate in the elections and exercise their franchise.
The civic body has also deployed 42,797 civic and private school employees, who are being given training, to manage 7,304 polling stations on election day.
The state election commission (SEC) will also arrange for 3,200 vehicles for the election staff and also to transport election materials, including the EVMs.
The BMC has started distributing voter’s slips (mentioning the voter’s name, polling centre and booth) to 91,80,491 lakh registered voters in the city, of which about 70% of the work has been completed so far, said civic officials.
Sanjay Deshmukh, additional municipal commissioner, who is in charge of election work, said, “We are expecting the work of distribution of voting slips to be completed by Sunday evening. The election staff will be given a last and third training session on Monday, to manage the polling booths so that the election exercise is carried out smoothly.”
On the last two days of the campaign, the vigil of the 98 flying squads, 39 video-surveillance squads has been increased. There will be about 7,994 control units and 9,279 ballot units installed across 7,304 polling stations so that voting is done through electronic voting machines. In addition to this, the civic body has also arranged for facilities for senior citizens and differently-abled people who may not be able to climb stairs.
Further, the SEC has also listed about 705 polling booths as sensitive where extra police personnel will be deployed and also, webcast surveillance cameras will be installed outside 17 hyper-sensitive polling stations in south Mumbai area. A total of 35,000 police personnel have been assigned election duty.
The BMC is going to polls after five years and with the separation of the saffron allies, Shiv Sena and BJP who have ruled the civic body together for the past two decades, Thursday will decide who will rule India’s richest civic body for the next five years.
The counting of votes will be done on Thursday at 23 locations in the city where the returning officers appointed by the state election commission are placed.
HEAVY DUTY
According to civic officials, the money will be spent on the entire election procedure — from setting up polling centres, transportation of electronic voting machines (EVMs), deputing surveillance squads, election-related advertisements and polling staff as well as the expenditure on the staff who will be handling the polling and counting of votes
7,304 polling stations on election day
42,797 civic and private school employees assigned to election duty
35,000 police personnel on election duty
705 polling booths marked as sensitive
17 marked as hyper-sensitive
91,80,491 lakh registered voters
98 flying squads
39 video-surveillance squads
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