BEL to supply 78,000 EVMs to EC

Ahead of the elections, Bharat Electronics Limited, which pioneered the manufacture of EVMs in the country, has received an order for 78,000 such machines from the Election Commission.  The Bangalore-headquartered BEL meets 50 per cent of the requirement of the Election Commission.  

Officials said the ECIL had received an order to produce 78,000 units for the EC.   "We are also looking at another order from Gujarat for their local body elections", they said.  "Since 1998, BEL has supplied 6.5 lakh EVMs, including 1.6 lakh during 2008-09", the officials told PTI here.  The officials said no modifications had been made to the EVMs since 2007 when the "event log" facility was incorporated. Through this, the exact time when the first and the last votes were polled could be ascertained and it also revealed the votes polled every hour.

"In a particular hour, if there was some unusual activity, like proxy voting, even that could be detected without removing the seal", the officials said.   The other important facility that was included in the machines was the braille script for the visually challenged.

The Strategic Business Unit for export manufacturing of BEL is looking at opportunities both in India and abroad for EVMs. It recently supplied 18,000 EVMs to the Gujarat Government and 2,000 units to Tamil Nadu Government for municipal and local body elections.

Apart from the Central and state government bodies, BEL was also holding talks with the Corporate sector for supply of EVMs, the officials said.
  
"However, the modalities for this are still being worked out as we need EC's permission to supply to the corporate sector", the officials said.
  
The average cost of an EVM made by BEL is about Rs 10,000. Besides BEL, the Hyderabad-based Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) also manufactures the EVMs.
  
BEL recently undertook modernisation of its mass manufacturing facility for EVMs at Bangalore, with an investment of Rs eight crore in order to meet the growing requirements from various government bodies.
  
The SBU, which derives almost 80 per cent of its business from the sale of EVMs, is eyeing the growing segment of contract manufacturing from global companies.
  
The unit is presently holding discussions with companies in US and UK for providing RFID-based (Radio Frequency Identification) solutions, the officials said.