Cost of holding elections to Karnataka Assembly: Rs 200 crore

A sum of Rs 200 crore would be spent on conducting elections to the State Legislative Assembly on May 5, the state's Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha said here today.
The state government would bear entire cost of the poll and had already released Rs 100 crore, he told reporters here.
"We sought Rs 200 crore from the state Government to conduct elections. We will spend about Rs 180 crore to Rs 200 crore", he said.
About Rs 2.5 lakh would be spent in each constituency to create awareness on enrolment of names in the voters' list and taking up Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) plan.

Steps have been taken to increase the percentage of voters to the population from the present 62 to 65 in Bangalore.
Already, 3.02 lakh applications have been received since January 20 in the city and nearly 60 per cent of them had been cleared.

There are 64.41 lakh voters in the city.
Jha said he held a meeting with officials of the Excise Department and instructed them to take steps to prevent illegal transportation of liquor and manufacturing of spurious liquor in districts.
All distilleries have been told to adhere to the model code of conduct during elections. There are 94 distilleries, including 23 wineries, in the State. Units have to manufacture liquor as per the indent given by the Karnataka State Beverages Corporation Limited, he added.