Estimated total record expenditure of Rs 1.35 lakh crore on the year 2024 electionsIn the elections of 1952, the expenditure on each voter was about 80 paise, which has now been paid 200 times.If 40 percent people do not vote in the elections, then there will be a loss of about Rs 50-60 thousand crores.
Lok Sabha elections for the year 2024 are going on in the country. Two phases of voting have been done in this election while 05 phases of voting are still pending. Indian general elections are so expensive that you cannot even imagine how much your vote costs, that is, when you cast a vote, how much money is spent on it. Your one vote is worth more than the money that people who are doing duty in elections get for a day.
All expenditure records are being broken in the current Indian elections. This time the entire election expenditure is going to be around Rs 1.35 lakh crore. Whereas last time in the general elections of 2019, the total expenditure was Rs 60,000 crore. The amount being spent on elections has been estimated by the Center of Media Studies i.e. CMS after an exercise of 03-04 months.
CMS has been tracking elections in the country for almost 35 years. Every year, CMS makes a complete assessment of the election expenses, which is done by adding up all types of expenses. All types of direct and indirect expenses have been included in this. This includes the expenses of political parties, expenses of the Election Commission, expenses of the government, that is, all kinds of expenses which happen in general elections.
The current election is considered to be the most expensive among Indian elections. (symbolic picture)
What is the total election expenditure?
Now you must be wondering what all these things have to do with the value of the vote given by a voter. It absolutely is. We will explain this further. Earlier it was believed that an amount of Rs 1.2 lakh crore would be spent on these elections in India, but later after all the calculations this number came out to be Rs 1.35 lakh crore. The current elections will be held in 45 days and 07 phases.
What is included in the expenses?
Let us also tell you that when the 2020 elections were held in America, it was worth Rs 1.2 lakh crore in Indian rupees and it was called the most expensive election in the world. There are very few countries in the world where such huge amounts of money are spent in elections. In Indian elections, huge expenses are incurred on things like deployment for the election process, movement of security forces from one place to another, logistics expenses and things like EVMs and VVPATs.
How much does it cost to vote?
There are 96.6 crore voters in this elections in India and the total population of the country is around 140 crores. If we consider the total election expenses as Rs 1.35 lakh crore, then the cost of one vote per voter will be equal to Rs 1400, but if the cost of vote per person is calculated with the total population of the country, then the cost of each vote will be Rs 964.28.
How much does the presiding officer get?
This price can be said to be equal to the one day income of more than half of the people of India. By the way, let us tell you that when you go to vote, the amount of Rs 350 given by the Election Commission for a day to the presiding officer posted there is 3-04 times the cost of an Indian voter’s vote. . Let us tell here how the Election Commission pays the expenses of the people deployed in the elections.
All the people deployed in elections are given Rs 150 for food a day or a packet of food worth this much. The amount of TA and DA is 100 percent.
How much was spent in the first elections
When elections were held for the first time in the country in 1952, Rs 10.45 crore was spent. From then till the 2009 elections, the amount of election expenses increased 84 times and if we talk about the expenses of the current elections, it is around a thousand times. Although the government had spent more on elections in 1952, however after this the amount decreased in the elections of 1957 and 1962.
Of the total Rs 60,000 crore spent on elections in 2019, BJP spent 45 percent of it. This will increase further in the 2024 elections. However, whatever expenditure is being incurred in the elections, sooner or later the people of the country will have to pay its burden through taxes and various other taxes and surcharges.
How much was spent on each vote in 1952
In the year 1952, when Lok Sabha elections were held for the first time in the country, more than Rs. 10 crores were spent on it, in fact this much expenditure was not incurred even in the elections of 1957 and 1962. The reason was that in the first elections there were procedural expenses which were being incurred for the first time. In this election, the total population of India was 37 crores while the number of voters was between 17-18 crores. So if we talk about per voter, the expenditure was around 80 paise and if we talk about the total population, the expenditure per person was 50 paise.
How much loss will be caused by people not voting?
If this time the expenditure per vote is Rs 1400, then according to this, if 40 percent people do not vote, then these people will incur a loss of about Rs 60,000 crore in the election process.
How much budget did the government allocate
As of December 2023, the Government of India proposed a total expenditure of Rs 5,331.7 crore for the 2023–2024 Lok Sabha elections. This also includes:
Rs 1,891.78 crore for EVMs
Rs 180 crore for Lok Sabha elections
Rs 18 crore for voter ID card
Rs 94 crore for other election expenses
The government also proposed an additional Rs 3,000 crore for the elections, which will be in addition to the Rs 2,183.78 crore allocated to the Law Ministry for election-related expenses in the Budget Estimates 2023-2024.
What was the rate of gold then and what is it now?
According to Taxguru.in, the average price of gold in 1950 was around ₹ 99 per 10 grams while in 1960 the average price of the yellow metal was ₹ 112 per 10 grams. The average price increased from Rs 112 per 10 grams in the 1960s to 70s to Rs 184.50 per 10 grams in the 1970s. In the decade of 1970 to 1980, the average price of gold increased from ₹ 184.50 per 10 grams to ₹ 1,330 per 10 grams.
In the decade 1980 to 1990, the average price of gold increased from ₹ 1,330 per 10 grams to ₹ 3,200 per 10 grams. 1990 to 2000: During this period the average price of gold increased from ₹ 3,200 per 10 grams to ₹ 4,400 per 10 grams. Between 2000 and 2010, the price of gold increased from ₹ 4,400 per 10 grams to ₹ 18,500. In 2020, the average price of gold in India was ₹ 48,651 per 10 grams. Now the price of gold (as of May 2, 2024) is ₹ 66,550 per 10 grams of 22 carat gold and ₹ 69,880 per 10 grams of 24 carat gold.
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Tags: 2024 Lok Sabha Elections
FIRST PUBLISHED: May 2, 2024, 08:34 IST