KOCHI: The state government’s decision to entrust the development of the software for posting polling officers to a private agency through Keltron has cost the state exchequer Rs 3 crore.
It was after removing the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which had been doing the job since 1991, that the government entrusted the job to Keltron which has outsourced the work to a private firm.
When the National Informatics Centre was doing the work, the entire cost could be limited well under Rs 5 lakh- the amount required to meet the salary expenses of the few officials who were deployed for the job.
At a meeting of the District Collectors, Chief Electoral Officer Nalini Netto is learnt to have stated that the software prepared by the National Informatics Centre for the last local polls had not been effective.
So the work should be done by Keltron, she said. The message sent by State Election Commissioner P Kamalkutty to the NIC proves that Nalini Netto was wrong in judging the contributions of the National Informatics Centre. The National Informatics Centre had won accolades from Kamalkutty for doing the job in a commendable manner.
But Nalini Netto said there was nothing controversial in the decision to entrust Keltron with the duty.
“It is Keltron which has been preparing the software for us for years. Moreover, we are preparing the software not according to our whims and fancies, but according to the directives of the Election Commission,” Netto said.
Since 1991, the NIC had prepared the software for the election department in the state during all the elections except the 2006 Assembly polls and 2009 Parliament elections.
In the 2006 Assembly elections and 2009 Parliament elections, the software for the counting of votes was prepared by the NIC. It was the National Informatics Centre that prepared the software to deploy officials as well as for counting in the civic polls in 2010.
There are allegations that the private firm has connections with a top IAS officer from Kerala who had to resign from his post at the Centre as the apex court nullified his posting.
However, the Keltron authorities say that the software is being prepared by them.
“The software was prepared by us. We have not deployed any private firm for the purpose,” said Prasannakumar, managing director, Keltron. But he couldn’t provide more details about it.