India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management

India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management( IIIDEM) of the Election Commission of India ( ECI), since its launch in June 2011 has hosted 25 courses for about 500 election officials and other stakeholders in all aspects of Election management including security, logistics, legal aspects, Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP), Election Expenditure Monitoring, Voters’ Registration and Model Code of Conduct. Workshops for National and State political parties on ‘Expenditure Monitoring’ and ‘Paid News’ were also held in the run up to Assembly elections in 2012. Another twenty courses are coming up in the next few months in preparation for the forthcoming series of General Elections and also Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls. These courses are being taken up against the background that 11 million personnel are engaged in a national election with responsibility to deliver a zero error election.

Besides the national training programmes, IIIDEM has also conducted three courses for Kenyan and Bhutanese election officials and Nigerian Election Commissioners.  A course for election officials from Maldives is being held later this month.  There are requests for such courses from Nepal, Afghanistan and Fiji.  Over the nine months of its existence, IIIDEM has become a hub for national and international training courses, seminars and workshops. Standard training modules for international participants have already been developed by a renowned team of Indian and International experts.

ECI has recently taken physical possession of the 5 acres of land which was allotted by DDA in a record time through positive intervention of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, for the regular campus of IIIDEM in Dwarka, New Delhi. The Commission is in the process of appointing an Architect for the new premises in consultation with CPWD. ECI has already received allocation of requisite funds of about 50 crore rupees for building the new campus of IIIDEM as well as for running the Institute from the Ministry of Finance with suitable budgetary provisions. It has also received significant support from the Ministry of External Affairs, for extending the training facilities available at IIIDEM to developing countries in several ways including through the mechanism of Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation, ITEC. The Commission has received continuous encouragement from the Prime Minister in this project and his Office has extended sustained cooperation. Several other Ministries have also provided full support to the Institute.

            Meanwhile, during expenditure related consultations taken up by Ministry of Finance, Commission came to know that a note was being proposed to the Union Cabinet for creation of an autonomous Society for IIIDEM based on earlier suggestions from ECI.

The Commission recently reviewed the activities undertaken by IIIDEM so far and was quite encouraged by the progress achieved by the Institute while it is working as a part of the training division of the Election Commission of India. Based on this experience, the Commission considered that there is no additional advantage in creation of a separate autonomous society for IIIDEM. As such, it decided to withdraw its earlier proposal for creation of such a Society. The Commission has since intimated the Government of its decision. The copy of Commission letter to Prime Minister in this connection is on the ECI Website.