The State government has finally released balance funds required for the smooth conduct of the elections giving much needed relief to the State election authority.
The government is understood to have released the second instalment of ₹ 162 crore Wednesday evening after a communication addressed by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer seeking release of funds as assured for the smooth conduct of the elections. The government, according to sources, has released ₹ 73 crore that was pending since the completion of the Assembly elections in December a couple of days ago.
The release comes at a time when is the CEO’s office is faced with unforeseen expenditure in the form of conduct of election for Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency as well as for putting in place necessary wherewithal in the districts which were lacking in facilities. The election authority has earmarked ₹ 95 crore for immediate payment of travel and dearness allowances for the employees and workers drafted for poll duties in addition to making arrangements at the polling stations for the smooth conduct of polls.
“Several of the newly formed districts don’t have the required infrastructure. We are incurring expenditure on account of providing makeshift arrangements at the polling stations in these districts,” a senior official told The Hindu.
The huge number of workers and personnel engaged in taking up work in Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency mandated additional spending by the election authority.
The expenditure was in addition to the cost incurred on deploying additional workers at the distribution centres who should be paid wages on daily basis. The first level checks in Nizamabad constituency, for instance, mandated deployment of over 100 workers while deputation of 600 engineers to supervise installation and functioning of the EVMs in Nizamabad constituency till the polling day, April 11, too resulted in the extra expenditure.
The government released the first instalment of ₹ 110 crore recently and the money was utilised under different heads including other office expenditure, advertisements, election material and hiring of vehicles.