It’s official. The Election Commission will not use marker pens to mark the fingers of voters in the forthcoming Assembly elections in five States.
H.A. Venkatesh, the chairman of Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited (MPVL), the sole supplier of indelible ink for elections, told The Hindu that the company got ₹7.50 crore order for supplying 4,18,300 vials of ink to the five States. The staff worked overtime and have already supplied half of the order.
“The EC asked for ink and not pens. If it had asked for pens, we would have supplied them in time like ink vials,” he added.
This time it was expected that the elections would finally see the ‘dawn’ of marker pens. MPVL had recently produced prototypes and was even ready to take up bulk production. These prototypes were developed after one year of research along with technical support from the National Physical Laboratory, the National Research Development Corporation and the National Chemical Laboratory.
Many benefits
The marker pens, claim the company authorities, have many benefits, besides being cost-effective.
“About 50% of cost will be saved if ink was replaced by marker pens since each pen can apply mark on 1,000 voters. Moreover, application and transportation of pens was also handy,” Mr. Venkatesh said.
Recent use of markers
Recently, they were supplied to Kerala for the local body elections and for the council polls in Maharashtra.
Reckoned to be one of its kind among the PSUs in the country, MPVL was founded by Sri Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar, the former Maharaja of Mysuru, in 1937. The company has supplied ink for Lok Sabha, Assembly and local body elections since 1962.
