Centre to incentivize startups to develop EVMs

Giving a boost to its Startup India initiative, the Centre has decided to encourage startups in the area of developing electronic voting machines. In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the government wants to encourage startups to come up with ideas on how to develop cheaper yet secure and foolproof EVMs and paper trail machines, reports ET.

Citing a source, the report said that the government took a "conscious decision" to this effect at Wednesday's Cabinet meeting and the proposal got thumbs up from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Presently, only two public sector companies make EVMs for the Election Commission. An EVM consists of a ballot unit and control unit. The government had on Wednesday cleared a proposal of the Election Commission to procure 5.50 lakh new ballot units and 5.45 lakh control units during 2016-17 from Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited and approved an expenditure of nearly Rs 9,200 crore for the purpose.

"The endeavor is to encourage emerging talent to come forward and assist in this field (EVMs) which has become an integral part of democracy and the electoral process," a top government official told ET. "The prime minister is very keen on providing a competitive architecture for emerging technologies which can provide cheaper yet foolproof EVMs. Also, the government is contemplating on rewarding any such startup which comes up with a new technology to achieve this purpose.”