ITI to make EVMs for Indian, overseas markets

Monday, 16 August 2004, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: State-run Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) Ltd. is diversifying into manufacturing electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the Indian and overseas markets. The public sector enterprise has entered into strategic alliance with M.S. Ramaiah School of Advance Studies for transfer of technology and specifications of the prototype EVM developed by the institute. The Bangalore-based institute has designed and developed the EVM to conduct simultaneous elections, with security features to prevent booth-capturing and better counting facility than the existing machines being manufactured by the other two public sector enterprises -- Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), Bangalore, and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), Hyderabad. ITI chairman Y.K. Pandey told reporters here Friday the company will usie its existing electronic production facilities in Bangalore or Rae Bareily in Uttar Pradesh to roll out the EVMs in five to six months. "Since ITI is basically an electronic manufacturing unit and has diversified into making currency note machines for public sector banks in the recent past, we are foraying into EVMs to make optimal utilisation of the existing production facilities without additional investment. "We are confident EVM market will expand to generate enough business for ITI, as e-voting will become the norm in the Indian election process and other countries in southeast Asia and Africa," Pandey stated. ITI will soon register with the Election Commission of India to customise its EVMs as per the specifications required for using them in parliamentary and assembly elections in the country. With the successful deployment of EVMs in the April-May general election for the first time on a large-scale across the country, ITI is hopeful of being enlisted by the election commission for supplying the machines, which are likely to be used for voting even in village council and civic body elections. "In view of the worldwide recognition Indian EVMs have achieved after the recent elections, we are planning to promote our product in the countries that have shown interest and are likely to import them. "We will be bidding for a share of the orders along with BEL and ECIL in the international market by pricing our product competitively," Pandey disclosed. The United Progressive Alliance government has placed EVMs in the export list. Singapore and Mauritius have decided to place orders for the supply of the machines from India for their upcoming elections. Two post-graduate students in Real Time Embedded Systems at the Ramaiah institute developed the EVM prototype and demonstrated its capabilities at IIT Delhi and Kanpur, besides the regional engineering college in Rourkela. The academic-industry partnership envisages licensing of the product to ITI exclusively. The royalty aspect will be worked out after the EVMs go into commercial production next year. "We have not included the royalty clause in the tie-up. This is the first initiative the institute has taken to collaborate with the industry (ITI) for commercial production of an innovative product developed by our students with faculty support," said Ramaiah Chief Executive B.R. Prabhakara.
Source: IANS
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