Kathmandu, December 19:

The Election Commission will replace old iron-made ballot boxes with plastic ones for constituent assembly polls, scheduled to be held by mid-June.

The EC has started taking necessary steps to dump the outdated heavy ballot boxes and replace them with the ones made of plastic. EC officials are hopeful that some international agency will agree to support Nepal in buying the boxes.

“We have decided to abandon iron boxes, which are expensive, difficult to maintain, transport and reuse. We have received samples plastic boxes and we’ll choose the best one,” EC spokesperson Laxman Bhattarai told The Himalayan Times today. He added that the representatives of political parties have also agreed for the change. According to him, the sample boxes meet international standards. Foreign technical advisors, working with the EC, agree that the boxes will improve the election scenario.