All cooperatives in Maharashtra would dispense with ballot papers and ballot boxes to save crores of rupees by using electronic voting machines for elections, reports DNA.
Maharashtra has more than 2.25 lakh cooperatives including cooperative banks, cooperative banks, milk societies, cooperative credit societies etc. A cooperative bank with 15,000 members incurs expenditures to the tune of Rs 8 to 10 lakh by using the traditional method of ballot papers and boxes.
A cooperative official says the department would purchase EVMs as per its need and it would be affordable taking into account huge expenditure required for conducting elections for individual cooperatives.
According to DNA report an NGO named Political Research and Analysis Bureau (PRAB) is behind this move. Chandrakant Bhujbal of PRAB had written a letter to Madhukar Chaudhari, commissioner of the election authority of the cooperatives department.
Bhujbal informed that the cooperatives department has arrived at a decision to introduce EVMs. He also informed that there are four types of EVMs and the ones used for local bodies or Assembly elections would not be useful for conducting elections for the cooperatives since the number of candidates would be more.
He added that the cooperatives department would be purchasing the EVMs as per its need and it would be affordable taking into account huge expenditure required for conducting elections for individual cooperatives.