NEW DELHI: With elections round the corner in five states, Ministry of Law and Justice in its outcome budget has decided to spend over 70 per cent of the `5,100 crore budget only on the elections, which comes to `3600 crore. Under the allocation, the money will be spent on the major election reforms and to make the election process smoother.
The Legislative Department under the Law Ministry also looks at the elections to the Parliament and State Legislatures.
The budget allocated will be spent on procuring more Electronic Voting Machines and implementing of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail procedure on every booth in the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand. As many as 16 lakh EVMs will be used in the upcoming elections with a budget of `22,000 crore.
Out of remaining `1,450 crore, only `900 crore comes under the plan head and the rest comes under the non-plan head which will be spent on the salaries of Law Ministry employees.
One of the major heads of expenditure comes under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary. A total of `625 crore is allocated for improving the infrastructure of courts across the country, with special emphasis on the North-Eastern states. This scheme, along with the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms has been implementation from 2011. One of these schemes is for computerisation of district and subordinate courts. Around 95 per cent of the 14,249 courts earmarked for computerisation have been readied for the same. Laptops have been provided to 14,309 judicial officers, and video conferencing facilities have been installed in 667 court complexes and jails.