The Election Commission is planning to hold Dhaka City Corporation elections at the end of January, introducing electronic voting system at least in one of the wards on an experimental basis. "We are considering introducing e-voting system at least in a ward," chief election commissioner ATM Shamsul Huda told reporters on Tuesday after a meeting at the EC Secretariat.

SM Lutful Kabir, director of the Institute of Information and Communication Technology of BUET, went to the EC Secretariat to brief on the e-voting system. Asked when the DCC polls would be held, Huda said: "We want to hold the polls at the end of January. It might also take place in February." The tenure of the DCC mayor and ward commissioners expired in May, 2007.

Parliament on Monday passed The Local Government (City Corporation) Bill 2009. The CEC said after the passage of the bill the commission would move to hold DCC polls by formulating different regulations. According to experts, if steps are taken now the e-voting can be used for holding the elections of the 10th parliament.

The EC wants to move for e-voting as existing manual voting involves huge expenditure in arranging ballot papers and ballot boxes, apart from allegations of rigging. Lutful Kabir earlier told bdnews24.com that the IICT presented a working model for e-voting to the Election Commission for review. 'It may cost a total of Tk 150 crore to introduce this system all over the country, Kabir said.

"But the system may be used in next parliamentary election if initiative is taken from now. It would take two-three years to complete all works to use it countrywide." He also said overseas technology may not be as suitable as a locally tailor-made system. The commission earlier said all decisions on e-voting would be taken after discussing with the political parties.

-bdnews