Estimates show that apart from this, a minimum of about Rs 15 billion trickled into the national economy including election expenses of around 7,208 candidates contesting for 849 seats of the National and provincial assemblies.
About Rs two billion was the administrative cost incurred by the federal and provincial governments. This also includes logistics and security arrangements and payments for private transport acquired by the district administrations.
A senior finance ministry official told Dawn that the EC had demanded Rs three billion but was given Rs 2.75 billion by the finance ministry.
Of this, Rs two billion was provided to the EC at the time of the announcement of election schedule last month. This does not include normal expenses of the election commission approved under the national budget.
Another Rs 500 million was released in mid-Sept followed by Rs 250 million during the last week of Sept, the official said. Similarly, the Press Information Department (PID) had sought Rs 18 million for the election advertisements and other media arrangements, but its demand was met only to the extent of Rs five million, the official added.
Secretary general finance, Moeen Afzal, when contacted expressed his inability about the election expenditure. The EC officials were also reluctant to say anything about it.
This is the highest amount ever spent on the day of general elections out of the national kitty. Election 1997, according to finance ministry official, had cost Rs 750 million to the government.
The EC officials said an amount of Rs 1.7 billion was spent on local bodies elections a year ago. Expenditure on presidential referendum in April this year had amounted to around Rs two billion.
Around 87,074 polling station and 163,641 polling booths were set up for April 30 presidential referendum while 173,148 polling assistants and 414,356 polling personnel had been deputed for the polling duties.
The polling stations for the Oct 10 general elections were however reduced to 64,475 while the number of polling booths was enhanced to 164,718.
The EC had set a maximum limit of Rs 1.5 million and Rs one million election expenses for the candidates of national and provincial assemblies, respectively, although most of them went beyond that limit and some of them even surpassed Rs 10 million. However, they would stand disqualified under the election rules if proved crossing the expenditure limit.
A total of 2,098 candidates contested for 272 national assembly seats. Taking Rs 1.5 million as average expenses as officially allowed by the EC the amount translates into Rs 3.15 billion.
Another Rs 5.11 billion was spent by the 5,110 candidates of 577 provincial assembly seats if calculated at the rate of official limit of Rs one million.
Major portion of this expenditure went to pockets of voters, party workers and other low-sections of the economy including cloth, transport, hotel, paper and printing industry.
