The Election Commission has given over 3,000 laptops to three ministries, from a stock of around 8,000 used to prepare the voter roll ahead of the last general election, an official said on Monday.

"The education, establishment and local government ministries have been given the computers to promote e-governance," EC secretary Muhammad Humayun Kabir told bdnews24.com on Monday.

The EC utilised the laptops to complete its mammoth task of preparing a database with photographs for over 80 million voters ahead of the general election in Dec 2008. An ongoing update of the electoral roll is scheduled to be completed by the commission in November. The EC will consider providing more laptops to other ministries after this phase of voter roll updating is completed, said Kabir.

The education ministry received 1,414 laptops, while the establishment ministry got 600 and the local government ministry took over 986. Education minister Nurul Islam Nahid will distribute his ministry's full complement of EC laptops to high schools around the country on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the establishment ministry will distribute their windfall to local government offices.

-bdnews