EVM Project Director (PD) Colonel Syed Rakibul Hasan on Wednesday said some 40,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) the Election Commission had were found to be defective.
He also said that the faulty EVMs are being sent to Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory for repair.
He said these things while informing the journalists at the Nirbachan Bhaban in Agargaon in the capital.
Rakibul Hasan said a total of 110,000 EVMS are ready for voting.
“The project of buying new EVMs was not approved due to the financial crisis. As a result, the Election Commission has to rely on the EVMs they already have. We have calculated the number of EVMs we have, how many of them are usable now and how many need to be repaired,” said Rakibul Hasan.
The project director said a total of 110,000 EVMs including 70,000 stored in Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory and 40,000 in other storage units are now operational for voting.
“Due to carelessness and negligence including not properly storing the EVMs after voting, they have become faulty,” he said.
It was found that the Election Commission bought 150,000 EVMs at a cost of TK3,825 crore in 2018 during the last National Assembly Election. However, many of those are now defective due to a lack of adequate management.
Most of the local government elections including City Corporation and the last by-polls of six parliamentary seats were held through EVMs.
Now EVMs are stored in more than 40 temporary warehouses in different districts of the country including 10 regional offices. Election Commission has found 40,000 EVMs defective after testing for the last 4 months.
