New Delhi: Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission (EC) has ordered 26 lakh indelible ink bottles worth Rs 33 crore. The seven-phase elections will begin April 11 and conclude May 19. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the body had bought 21.5 lakh phials, 4.5 lakh less than this year.
Mysore Paints and Varnish Ltd, a government of Karnataka undertaking, is the only authorised manufacturer of indelible ink for the EC. The MD of the company, , Chandrashekhar Doddamani told this agency Sunday that the company has received an order for 26 lakh phials of 10cc each from the EC. “The expected turnover is approximately Rs 33 crore,” he informed.
In this election, nearly 90 crore people are eligible to cast their votes for which the EC will set up nearly 10 lakh polling stations across the country.
In 1962, the EC, in collaboration with the Law Ministry, National Physical Laboratory and National Research Development Corporation, had made an agreement with Mysore Paints for supply of indelible ink for Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. Since then, it has been supplying the ink for elections in India.
It should be stated here that soon after the note ban, the company was asked to provide indelible ink to banks to mark customers exchanging defunct currency notes to check suspicious deposits.
Grappling with unending queues and frayed tempers in banks and to check operation of syndicates after the note ban, the government had introduced the system of marking customers exchanging defunct currency notes with indelible ink.
PTI