Telangana to spend Rs 20 crore on printing ballot papers for urban local body elections

HYDERABAD: With the State Election Commission deciding to conduct polls through ballot papers for the ensuing urban local body (ULB) polls on the lines of panchayat, zilla parishad and mandal parishad elections, the State government would incur nearly `20 crore expenditure for printing of ballot papers for as many as 129 municipalities and three municipal corporations.

Though the State Election Commission (SEC) has the required number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for conducting the municipal polls, they do not have Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units.

There was a proposal to utilise VVPATs that were used by the Chief Electoral Office (CEO), Telangana in the recent Assembly and Lok Sabha polls, however, their EVM and VVPAT configuration does not match with that of EVMs belonging to TSEC, so it was decided to hold municipal polls by printing ballot papers, TSEC officials told Express. 

The TSEC has notified July 14 as the date for publication of Photo Electoral Rolls of all the wards of the respective municipalities.

Revised schedule

Meanwhile, the Telangana Municipal Administration Department has revised timelines for identification of ST, SC, BC and women voters in the ULBs. As per the orders issued by Election Authority and Director of Municipal Administration Department TK Sreedevi, the draft publication of ward wise electoral roll voters in Form-1 will be done on July 10. The claims and objections can be filed between July 11 to 12. Disposal of claims  will be taken up on July 13.