Rates of over 600 items fixed to calculate election expenditure

Central team holds meeting with officials to start surveillance

Proper accounting of election expenditure will soon be the norm in the city with election expenditure observers conducting a series of meetings with various teams associated with the poll-related spending on Wednesday.

The Chennai District Election Office has finalised rates of more than 600 items for calculating expenses incurred on campaigning by candidates. For example, the price of a packet of vegetarian biryani distributed in the city to a participant in an election campaign has been fixed at ₹110. A packet of non-vegetarian biryani has also been priced at ₹110. The rate for lunch has been stipulated at ₹100, coffee at ₹20, tea at ₹20, a sari at ₹200, a dhoti at ₹200, a shawl for ₹150, a water bottle at ₹20, a tubelight at ₹10 per day, a chair at ₹6 per day and hiring a car at ₹1,200 for 12 hours.

At their first meeting to discuss election expenses in the city with district election officials, income tax officers, surveillance teams and the police, it was decided that for every three Assembly segments there will be one expenditure observer. Every Assembly segment in the three Parliamentary constituencies of the district will have one assistant expenditure observer.

After giving instructions to the assistant expenditure observers, the expenditure observers will leave on Thursday and return once the final list of candidates is ready.

Meeting today

Following the meeting with expenditure observers, the Chennai District Election Office has invited nine political parties to participate in a meeting on Thursday.

The parties invited include AIADMK, DMK, Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPI(M), DMDK and NCP. Officials said the actual monitoring of election expenditure would intensify only after April 1, following finalisation of the names of candidates.

Starting Tuesday, the six senior officials of the Indian Revenue Service have been assessing all aspects of election expenditure by political parties in the three Parliamentary constituencies in Chennai district to prevent corrupt practices in expenditure-sensitive areas.

The Chennai District Election Office has received just 26 complaints so far relating to election expenditure and model code violations through cVIGIL.