NT NETWORK
PANAJI
Union Minister of State for Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology P P Chaudhary informed Shantaram Naik, MP in the Rajya Sabha, on Friday in a written reply that “The Election Commission (EC) has informed that the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) unit will be deployed in some Assembly constituencies in the State of Goa.”
Chaudhary further said that the EC has informed that after proportional allocation, the Goa has got 142 VVPAT machines, which can be deployed in 114 polling stations, after keeping 25% reserve for training, awareness and poll.
He further informed Naik that the Commission has placed an order for procuring 67,000 new VVPAT machines which will be proportionately deployed across all 5 states going for poll in early 2017.
Reserve of 25% VVPAT is kept during election to meet the requirement of training, awareness and poll-reserve.
In case, any VVPAT goes out of order a replacement is provided from the reserve units which would be kept at Assembly Constituency level, said Chaudhary.
Minister also informed Naik that Rs 19,650 plus taxes is the price paid to the manufacturers for each set of VVPAT machine purchased in the year 2013.