The Election Commission of India is not lagging behind when it comes to use of advanced technology in the high-profile Assembly elections.

The commission, for the first time, initiated steps to provide global positioning system (GPS)-fitted vehicles to the personnel of flying squads and static surveillance teams to carry out raids to check the use of black money and excess expenditure by candidates in the upcoming elections.

The new system has already started paying rich dividends. In the past four weeks alone, unaccounted cash amounting to Rs 15 crore had been seized from different parts of the state. In addition, the officials recovered gold and foreign currencies in large quantity during operations in the run up to the five-phase poll.

Gaya topped the list of the seizure of unaccounted money. A little over Rs 2 crore had been seized during the operation launched by the district authorities. "The new arrangement has been made in the wake of numerous complaints that the members of flying squad and those of static surveillance teams were not serious about their job and deliberately delayed the search operations," a senior election commission official said.

Additional chief electoral officer R Laxmanan said the GPS-fitted vehicles had been provided to each flying squad and static surveillance teams to keep a track on their movement.

"It is also helpful in assessing the response time of the personnel after receipt of the complaint," he told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

The seizure of unaccounted money during surprise checks has doubled compared to the previous election. Laxmanan revealed that a sum of Rs 6 crore was seized during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in the state. However, the amount seized during the 2010 Assembly elections was less than Rs 2 crore, he added.

Similarly, the officials seized 850 illicit weapons during search at suspected hideouts of criminals and Maoists.

A total of 1,365 FIRs related to violation of model code of conduct had been lodged since the announcement of the dates of elections by the Election Commission, he revealed.

Earlier, chief electoral officer Ajay V. Naik had clarified that the activities of the personnel assigned to carry out checks were under the surveillance of the commission.

"Installation of the GPS in their vehicles would also work as deterrent," the CEO added.

All major political parties have already set up war rooms for high tech election campaign.