During Polls, EVMs Handled 99% by Private Engineers, Says Insider

Video editor: Purnendu Pritam

• No private engineers handled EVM and VVPAT machines during the elections – a claim made by the Election Commission of India (EC), busted by The Quint.
• No private companies engaged to check and maintain EVMs and VVPATs – yet another Election Commission claim, busted by The Quint.

In August 2019, we revealed how the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), which manufactures EVMs for the EC, had engaged Mumbai-based private company M/s T&M Services Consulting Private Limited to provide consulting engineers for the handling of EVMs and VVPATs during elections – including the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Engineers on the Payroll of Private Company

Now there is a fresh revelation – that M/s T&M Services Consulting Private Limited, which provided the Election Commission with private engineers, is not an approved vendor with the ECIL.

On its website, the ECIL has uploaded a list of approved corporate vendors empanelled with it since 2015, and M/s T&M Services Consulting Private Limited is not on that list.

99% of Engineers Involved in EVM-Checking are on Contract: Private Engineer

The Quint contacted a few private engineers who worked for T&M Services Consulting Private Limited. They confirmed that they were on the payroll of the private company and the ECIL engaged them for handling EVMs during the elections.

A junior private consultant said 99 percent of the engineers engaged in elections are on contract. He also said contractual engineers do the field work of testing the EVMs and VVPATs while the role of the permanent engineers of the ECIL is supervisory – for instance, deploying contractual engineers in different polling stations.

(Click here to read the detailed report.)