Rs 19.21 billion allocated for elections, Rs 28.58 billion spent in last two elections

Kathmandu. The Ministry of Finance has so far released Rs 19.21 billion for the management and security of the House of Representatives elections. The Election Commission, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Defense have been allocated the budget for election management, of which the Home Ministry has the largest share.

According to Tanka Prasad Pandey, spokesperson of the Ministry of Finance, out of Rs 19.21 billion, Rs 10.39 billion has been released to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Rs 1.99 billion to the Ministry of Defense and Rs 6.72 billion to the Election Commission.TAG_OPEN_p_11

The Election Commission had estimated that it would spend around TAG_OPEN_p_10 Rs 27 billion in the upcoming elections, while the government is estimating that it will spend Rs 25 billion.

The expenditure of the security agencies is more than that of the Election Commission. The Ministry of Home Affairs and Defense had proposed the necessary budget for the Nepal Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force (APF), National Investigation Department and Election Police.

The Central Security Committee (CJC) is preparing to recruit 1,47,000 election police personnel for election security.TAG_OPEN_p_8 Around Rs 9.15 billion will be allocated for police personnel, uniforms, ration, lunch and transport expenses.

A total of TAG_OPEN_p_7 Rs 28.58 billion was spent in the last two elections, according to the data. According to the analysis, the Election Commission returned about 20 percent of the budget by adopting austerity in its management expenses, while the security agencies spent 99-100 percent of the allocated budget.

This data shows that the security arrangements in the current elections are becoming more expensive, which has increased the cost of ballot paper management and conducting elections.