Electronic voter machines are tamper-proof and supplier ECIL complies with all standard norms laid down for these machines, said Sekhar Basu, Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy.

ECIL is a government enterprise functioning under the DAE, and is engaged in the manufacture of sensitive equipment for nuclear, defence, aerospace, security and related areas.

Reiterating that EVMs cannot be tampered, Debashish Das, CMD of the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd (ECIL), said: “These EVMs are made to standard norms and despatched to the Election Commission of India, which has elaborate process of maintaining and managing them.”

“It is simply not possible to tamper EVMs as adequate security has been built into them,” they explained.

Speaking at a meeting coinciding with 50 years of the ECIL’s formation, the AEC chief said the focus now, is on expanding its role to make a much wider range of products. “Our focus is not on making profits but on manufacturing products that are critical for country’s requirements.”

Gearing up for a bigger role in the coming years, the ECIL chief said they had bagged the mandate to supply 8 lakh Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units, and four lakh EVMs. Both orders are to be executed over the next two years.

While the order for VVPAT units is worth about ₹1,500 crore, the contract for EVMs is worth ₹600 crore.

₹2,500 crore order book

The company closed last fiscal with a turnover of ₹1,500 crore and expects to see a sustained growth over the coming years on the back of new orders and forays into newer areas of business. It has an order book of ₹2,500 crore.

“While ECIL was first Indian firm to manufacture television sets in 1971, we slowly drifted away from it to focus on key areas of supplying core electronics items for defence, space and other critical applications. The work which we do cannot be looked from revenue perspective but from the strategic contribution we make to projects of national importance,” Sekhar Basu said.

Referring to the importance of national security and security for critical establishments, Basu said a number of Indian power plants, nuclear plants, Parliament and many other critical establishments have security network supplied by ECIL. “We believe this will be a big opportunity in the years to come,” he said.

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