One Nation, One Poll could save 1.04 crore personnel-days: EAC-PM Paper

A working paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the PM (EAC-PM) member Sanjeev Sanyal estimates a gross baseline reduction of 33% in polling personnel (PP) deployment under the simultaneous election framework resulting in a a saving of 1.04 crore polling personnel-days over a five year election cycle.

“This is significant not just because of the large size of the reduction but also because most of the deployed polling personnel are school teachers,” the paper, co-authored by Satvik Dev, joint director, EAC-PM, said.

As per the paper, the net estimated reduction in PP deployment under simultaneous elections is 28% (or 26 lakh polling personnel) for a five-year election cycle. Multiplying this by the number of training (2) and deployment (2) days, we estimate a saving of 1.04 crore polling personnel-days over a 5year election cycle, it explained.


Citing the Election Commission of India benchmarks, the paper said while nine PP are required per polling station (PS) to conduct a poll separately for state assembly (presiding officer or PRO plus three polling officer or POs) and Lok Sabha (PRO plus 4 POs), only 6 PP are required per PS to conduct a simultaneous poll (PRO plus 5 POs).

However, the gross baseline reduction number needs to be adjusted for premature dissolution of a State Assembly resulting in a fresh election that leads to higher deployment of PP under the simultaneous framework, the paper said.

“This is because the dissolved assembly has to be re-elected to serve a truncated ‘unexpired’ term till the next synchronized cycle, when it is elected again simultaneously with the Lok Sabha,” it added.

Further, elections of some State Assemblies are already synchronized with the Lok Sabha and in such cases there will be no reduction in PP deployment for such states.

Also since union territories without legislatures do not have State Assembly elections, there will be no reduction in PP deployment for these Union Territories.

The paper has arrived at above adjustments using historical data of 25 years covering the last five completed election cycles from 1999 to 2024.