On Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 11:02:12 AM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
https://www.c3sindia.org/business-economics/issue-brief-v-indias-current-economic-situation-and-prospects-for-the-future-by-shri-mr-sivaraman-ias-retd/
"A factor that interferes with our development process are the periodical elections. The EC incurs over Rs.4000 crores on one election to the Lok Sabha and one state election will cost several hundred crores. If the polls are held simultaneously as was
being done earlier the savings will be several thousand crores and this could be directed toward economically productive sectors. Further the elections disrupt development projects albeit temporarily as every announcement could be treated as election-
related. Government officers go overboard and stop even normal expenditures. In spite of the recommendations by the law commission to hold simultaneous elections, we have not travelled any distance on that. The Chinese also have many layers of units of
government like provinces, autonomous cities, municipalities, autonomous regions and so on up to the village committee office bearers for which elections do take place but being a single-party system, they are concluded swiftly. This is the difference
between the Chinese system of Governance and ours. Political parties are indifferent to the major electoral reform that could save thousands of crores."
Well, India election politic is still machine politics. Election politics would be more costly and disruptive if it becomes individualized like the US.
India as GDP has surpassed the UK, its former colonial master. China's Global Times put out
a piece on whether India can replicate China's grow.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202209/1274920.shtml
Of course, many factors go into economic development for large and populous nations like
India and China. The Global Time article emphasizes infrastructure. How about political system?
The c3sindia.org article above suggested election cost might be a factor slowing down economic
development. (The URL had been changed to:
https://www.c3sindia.org/post/issue-brief-v-india-s-current-economic-situation-and-prospects-for-the-future-by-shri-mr-sivaram
"The EC incurs over Rs.4000 crores on one election to the Lok Sabha..." was the figure given by
Modi. It translates into about 500 million USD for Indian Lower House election every 5 years. Does not
look the large.
How reliable is Modi's official figure?
The following article dated September 18th, 2017 had offered alternative figure based on the number
of people needed for the election process.
https://right2vote.in/much-india-spends-lok-sabha-election/
"As per government figures Rs. 4000 crores* was spent in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
My back of the envelop calculation suggest the number must be more than Rs. 30,000 crores!!
I filed a RTI to get the details but did not get any response. With limited information, it is
not possible to come up with an exact number, but in the text, that follows, I will convince
you that it is many times more than Rs. 4000 crores.
1 Crore people on election duty
In the attached link from Times of India, Mr. Modi not only quotes Rs. 4000 crores number
but also mentions that more than 1 crore people are required to manage the 2014 Lok Sabha
election. Which means government spends only Rs. 4000 per election worker.
( Rs. 4000 crores / 1 crore people). Is it possible?
Generally, people are deployed in district other than their home district to avoid conflict of interest.
The people who work on election are not only paid daily allowance but also all their expenses
relating to flight / rail expenses of the personnel to the voting district, their hotel expenses, their
food and local transportation expenses is borne by the government. And mind you the election
process goes on for more than 60 days. Hence on an average a person would be employed in the
process for around a week or so.
10 Lakh booths for 2014 Lok Sabha election
As per government data, around 10 lakh booths were created for 2014 Lok election across the country.
Which means per booth cost of only Rs. 40,000 (Rs. 4000 crores / 10 lakh booths). Is it possible?
...
Total = Rs. 32,500 crores"
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