The Election Commission is going to ask for Tk 10 billion from the government in the next financial year for holding the national and local government elections.
It estimates that Tk 5 billion will be spent on the parliamentary polls and an equal amount on the Upazila Parishad balloting.
The Constitution mandates the government hold the general elections between Oct 25 this year and Jan 24 next year, while the sub-district polls are supposed to be held within 2014.
“The EC’s proposal (for the money) will be sent to the Finance Division following a meeting of the commission’s budget management committee next week,” said Additional Secretary to EC Secretariat Sirajul Islam.
He said the spending would exceed that of any other pervious election.
The ninth parliamentary elections cost the government a little over Tk 1.65 billion – Tk 103.37 million was paid in allowances to army personnel deployed for maintaining law and order.
Tk 874.57 million was spent on law-enforcement agencies under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Of the amount paid for maintaining security, Tk 10 million was spent on gathering intelligence.
The government spent over Tk 1.2 billion on last Upazila Parishad vote, of which Tk 670 million alone for ensuring security.
The EC came up with the expenditure estimate at a meeting on Jan 17. The meeting decided to allocate Tk 119 million for holding polls in Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Sylhet and Gazipur city corporations.
Bangladesh has had parliamentary elections nine times since independence in 1971.
According to EC officials, three law-enforcers are required for ensuring security of an election official. They said the bulk of the election expenditure goes under security head.
Former Election Commissioner M Shakhawat Hossain said the cost of staging election is increasing ‘to keep pace with the time’.
“And naturally the most is spent on security. A huge sum of money needs to be allocated to call in army, BGB, RAB, and police,” he explained.
Source: bdnews24.com
