After the report of The Indian Express which claimed that the Election Commission of India(ECI) is no way near in procuring the 16 lakh voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines before the 2019 general elections as it promised the Supreme court, the EC has issued a statement referring to the same.
On Wednesday, the Election Commission said, “all voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines will be procured well within the time required for making pre-poll preparations for 2019 Lok Sabha elections.”
The introduction of VVPAT machines was suggested after the results of the Uttar Pradesh elections where the opposition parties questioned the authenticity of the EVM machines. Last year, the ECI had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court where it claimed to provide VVPAT machines well before 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It also promised that the two manufacturing PSUs– Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) in Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) in Hyderabad will deliver the machines by September 2018.
The ECI said that it is continuously tracking the progress of the supply and production of the VVPAT machines. It said, “In order to meet the requirement of VVPATs for 100% saturation of all polling stations for 2019 Lok Sabha polls in 2019, Commission placed an order of 16.15 lakh VVPATs. The Commission has been consistently and periodically reviewing the status of production and supply of VVPATs”, reported The Indian Express.