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EC may ask army to take final voter list printing job

Shakhawat Luon
The Election Commission (EC) is now planning to ask the army to take the responsibility of printing the finalised national voter list with photographs in a bid to meet the deadline for finishing the job, stipulated by its own electoral roadmap.
If the army takes up the job, it will greatly reduce the expenditure in comparison to the cost of printing previous voter lists, and will also ensure maintaining the electoral course stipulated by the roadmap, said a senior EC official who has been working with the voter list project.
According to the electoral
roadmap announced by the commission on July 15 last year, the final national voter list should be ready by October of this year for holding the stalled ninth parliamentary' election by the year end.
In the past, the EC used to depend on private vendors to print final voter lists, who had failed to finish the job within deadlines, annoying the commission which in retaliation is still not clearing the bills for the jobs that were finally done at the end of 2006, an official of the EC Secretariat said.
Based on previous bitter experiences, the EC this time around docs not want to depend on private vendors for printing the final voter list in
the run up to holding the parliamentary election, sources said.
In defence of depending on the army, senior officials of the EC Secretariat said if the army does the job, the expenditure will not exceed Tk 10 crore, whereas Tk 22 crore was spent for printing the voter list in 2000, and over Tk 22 crore was spent for the purpose in 2006.
Besides, the army is also interested in doing the job since it does not want to take any risk regarding pnnting of the final national voter list, senior officials involved in the project said.
The army, which has been working in the project of preparing the voter list since the beginning of it, is currently printing area wise draft voter lists, wherever voter registration has been completed.
Already procured 500 computer printers have been set up at upazila levels across the country, while a few more are scheduled to be purchased with fund from the project for preparing the voter list with photographs, the sources added.
Currently, the army is printing three copies of each area wise draft voter list. Five copies of the final national voter list will be printed for holding of the ninth parliamentary election, and another four to five copies of the final national voter list, excepting the area wise lists for the six city corporations, will have to be printed to hold upazila elections.
If the number of voters stands at eight crore, the EC will have to print 40 crore names only for holding the parliamentary poll.
"The army may print the final voter list using the printers set up at field levels. Besides, another batch of printers will be purchased to make the job easier,” a senior EC official told The Daily Star yesterday.
The EC met on January 15 and 21, but it did not take any decision regarding how to finish the job of printing the final national voter list. The commission will soon sit in a meeting with senior army official to take the decision, the sources added.
Final voter lists for four city corporations and seven municipalities are set to be ready for printing by the end of this month after publication and scrutiny of the draft lists for those areas.
The EC already directed field level election offices on Sunday to start publishing area wise draft voter lists wherever voter registry, tion has been completed. After the area wise draft voter lists are published and scrutinised, printing of the area wise final voter lists will begin.