Maha to fund state EC purchase of new VVPAT-enabled EVMs

The Maharashtra government will provide funds to the State Election Commission for the purchase of new VVPAT-enabled EVMs, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said here today.
However, the quantum of funds or number of machines to be procured cannot be known immediately.
VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballotless voting system.
VVPAT-enabled EVMs can provide receipt to every voter after casting of vote and allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly. VVPAT is used to increase the reliability of voters on EVMs, which were alleged to be vulnerable to hacking.

"The government will continue to support the SEC for its electoral improvements as it strengthens the democratic structure. There still some problems related to updated voters list, deletion and changing the names of voters, which is a constant procedure. State will try to help the SEC from time to time to overcome the hurdles," the State Election Commission said in a statement after Fadnavis chaired a meeting here.
Apart from officials of the SEC, chief secretary Sumit Mullik, additional chief secretary Pravinsinh Pardeshi, additional chief secretary of finance ministry V Giriraj, principal chief secretary of UDD (Urban development) Manisha Mhaiskar-Patankar also attended the meeting.

The meeting was called for strengthening of democratic procedures and improvements in electoral systems, the statement said.
Fadnavis hailed J S Saharia, Chief Election Officer of the SEC, for implementing various innovative programmes and concepts during the local governing bodies' elections which were held in the several phases in the winter of 2016 and recently this year, it said.