Names of 13 crore voters were deleted from electoral rolls, over 12 lakh government employees ran door-to-door day and night, while lakhs of migrant workers had to suddenly return to their states by spending their entire month’s salary because they feared their names would be cut from both the democratic process and government schemes – the special intensive revision (SIR) by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to clean the voter rolls has put the whole country on its toes. In April 2025, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had praised ‘One Nation, One Election’, saying it will save Rs 12,000 crore, while boosting GDP by 1.5%. But neither she, nor the other ministers could ascertain what would be the cost of SIR, and its extended process. Even now, the Modi government doesn’t recognise the massive and sudden financial burden it has put on the people of the country. What is the actual cost of SIR to the Election Commission?Apparently none.For the financial year 2026-27, the ECI has been allocated Rs 382.20 crore, a 25.33% increase from the Rs 304.98 crore it was allocated last year. Of that, Rs 367.99 crore is earmarked for “elections”, with the remainder for administrative and operational costs.Now compare that to the scale of the exercise the ECI is running. The SIR has already deleted over 13 crore names from the rolls, and it is mobilising roughly 12 lakh public servants, mostly school teachers, at a recurring cost that, according to The Indian Express, is “thousands of crores, every cycle”. The ECI’s entire annual budget is a fraction of what a single national SIR cycle is estimated to burn through the broader exchequer.Then where does the cost of SIR come from? The Union law ministry is the nodal ministry of the Election Commission. The expenses related to elections on the Union government’s side are routed through the legislative department of the Law and Justice Ministry. As per demand no. 66 of the Union Budget, titled “Election Commission”, funds given to the poll body has been placed under the Ministry of Law and Justice. So, basically, funds given to the ECI are arranged through the Law Ministry.For the financial year 2026-27, the Law Ministry has been allotted Rs 250 crore for issuing voter ID cards along with Rs 500 crore to clear dues for the expenses of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.The printing of forms, sending notices, and the cost of voter ID cards follow a Union-state sharing model. When SIR is conducted in a state, the cost of its administrative machinery, BLO (booth-level officers) salaries and security is borne by the state governments. This means that the ECI is just the referee while the state governments bear the cost of every match along with the citizens standing in the long queues.Shouldn’t the law minister be also held accountable? Doesn’t the law ministry care about the funds routed through them to the Election commission and the Union government’s share of funds? You can ask him that, when he is not busy re-posting Modi’s reels or singing paeans in his honour. Data on state expenditures on SIR is also very scant in the public. According to the Telangana Chief Electoral Office, the estimated cost of SIR in Telangana is going to be Rs 200 crore. Of this, Rs 85 crore is for BLOs and other officers deployed in this exercise. The final stage is currently underway. According to a report in The Hindu on October 29, even before SIR took place there, there were far too many Form-6 rejections and Form-7 deletions, which increased administrative work, re-processing of applications while the entire state machinery was put into this collective effort. First, notices were sent to 92,88,188 voters there, then 89,13,300 names were cleared for the final roll. Is that why the cost of SIR exercises is kept estimated, so that the ECI’s mistakes can be hidden?State-wise budgetsEi Samay, a Kolkata-based daily, reported that the SIR budget in West Bengal was set at Rs 450 crore. However, sources in the election commission there found that a budget of Rs 500 crore had already been crossed. Even then, all BLOs have not received their full salary. The West Bengal government first released Rs 51 crore for BLO remuneration, then sanctioned Rs 38.8 crore to clear pending dues. Even then, many BLOs received only Rs 5,000 out of the promised Rs 12,000, and Rs 7,000 is pending.The SIR exercise came to Bengal just before the assembly election. More than 91 lakh voters’ names were cut, while 27 lakh voters could not vote in the election as a result of the process. Even now, all genuine voters’ names have not been added back to the voter list. The ECI is now conducting special drives. Where the entire process was intended to be completed in two-three months, the process has been running for 11 months. What effect does it have on the state’s limited resources? Voters have been kept engaged in repeated notices, hearings, appeals and re-processing. On the other hand, BLOs, EROs, AEROs, DEOs, and other election staff are also on continuous duty. Because of this, reports suggest, neither is teaching happening properly in schools, nor exams.The condition of the remaining states is also the same. In fact, finding out the actual cost of SIR is like looking for a needle in the dark. The ECI website is full of smiling photos of Gyanesh Kumar. At the same time, the homepage of the Ministry of Law and Justice website is filled with advertisements of Modi ji, ‘Make in India’, and BRICS. The homepage of the Legislative Department is dominated by posters for Mann Ki Baat and Yoga Day. One has to really look hard to find any column here for things like budget, expenditure, balance sheet and funds.On August 31, the draft rolls of Delhi SIR were published and names of 47.56 lakh voters were cut from the list. These accounted for 32.78% of all voters. The number of voters went from 1.45 crore to 97.53 lakh following SIR. In 68 of Delhi’s 70 assembly constituencies, the number of deleted voters is far greater than the winning margin in the 2025 election.Yet, no one knows how much was spent on SIR in Delhi. It appears that first, money was poured in to delete people from the electoral roll; then money and state machinery were used to restore voters’ names. But if one looks for how much was spent to do all of this, there is no proper record of expenditure. Congress leader P. Chidambaram says that an ‘additional surcharge’ should be imposed on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar for this double expenditure.The Gen Z protestsIt was only after the many protests led by the Gen Z and others; and after reports like those in The Indian Express and Reporter’s Collective, the ECI has now backed down from conducting more SIRs. In a directive on October 15, the ECI said that now, in the remaining 17 states and Union territories, it will conduct SSR – Special Summary Revision – instead of SIR. In this exercise, enrolment of first-time voters will become easier, and there will be no need to prove one’s citizenship. BLOs will also not have to do house-to-house visits. So, has the commission accepted its mistake? Were the protesting youth demanding Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation right?It is also important to take a look at the ongoing Census because both the exercises are fighting for the same resources. Be it enumerators or BLOs, it will be the same school teachers, Asha workers and Anganwadi workers who are mobilised.According to the Union government, the 2027 Census will employ around 30 lakh field functionaries. In SIR, around 12 lakh BLOs have already been included. Sabar Institute estimates that in West Bengal, 88,100 government employees were deployed for at least 90 days during the revision process. Naturally, work in health, education, and other government departments slowed down. In fact, even after more than 11 months now, many of the employees are engaged with pending SIR work in the state.What of public expenditure?Government expenditure in the SIR process is only half the story, the other half is paid by the public. In West Bengal, Sabar Institute calculated that people suffered a cumulative loss of about Rs 2,000 crore due to the SIR. A total of 1.5 crore voters were called for tribunal hearings. They bear the transport and food expenses from their own pocket. A day of work is wasted. The institute calculates this out-of-pocket expenditure for people in this entire exercise to come to a total of Rs 1,983 crore.Many individual cases have been reported as proof of this. Delhi’s 53-year-old Kamta Prasad was declared dead. To prove himself alive, he has been running around different government offices, spending at least Rs 250 a day; that is his entire family’s daily wage. Similarly, 63-year-old Sanichari Devi of Chandni Chowk, who earns Rs 400-500 daily wage every day, fainted at a hearing centre. Officials had sent her back home twice for documents. Migrant workers have it even harder. Lakhs of migrant workers from Bengal and Bihar, who work in cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Surat and Noida, had to spend their entire month’s salary to head back to their states for urgent hearings. They had to let go of wages for several days. Some had to take loans, the others had to suddenly bear the cost of flights and tatkal tickets. Even after all the hassle, many of their names are missing from the final roll.This is the fear poor families have been living with since last year, when the exercise first started. And if their names are removed from the voter list, it will also be removed from ration and welfare schemes lists. These fears were realised in West Bengal, after the BJP government came to power, when people were removed from the Annapurna Yojna.Bihar’s chief minister too announced that those whose names do not appear in SIR will not get the benefit of government schemes, that they will not get ration and their bank passbooks will be cancelled; eventually their driving licences too. Meanwhile, the government’s treasury continues to be empty, because it is busy filling the treasuries of its friends. By depriving the poorest and most marginalised sections of the society their right to vote, and their right to inclusion and welfare, the Modi government wants to take away the last crumbs left of resources and democracy. Kavita Kabeer is a writer and a satirist, currently helming the shows ‘Cracknomics’ and ‘Digital Arrest’ for The Wire.