Bhubaneswar: The Odisha electoral officer on Monday began process for the upcoming general elections by asking all district electoral officers to submit the expenditure estimates likely to be incurred on polls in their areas.

In Odisha, Assembly elections are also due with Lok Sabha polls in early 2019. Elections will be held for 147 Assembly seats and 21 Lok Sabha seats.

Chief electoral officer Surendra Kumar said: "We will make a budget for the general elections. It is being undertaken in compliance with the orders issued by the Election Commission of India."

The district electoral officers, who happen to be the district collectors, have been asked to make a study of the likely poll expenses. The poll expenses include building infrastructure such as booths and strongrooms, apart from arranging transport for the polling parties.

The collectors were asked to build new strongrooms, if the existing ones are not found safe. Strongrooms are essential to store the voter verifiable paper audit trails (VVPAT) and the EVMs. In the upcoming election, the VVPAT will be used in each booth, along with the EVMs.

He said: "Whatever funds are required, the government will sanction it. The works department has been requested to finish its work in time and hand over the new strongrooms wherever required to the collectors."

In 2014, around Rs 110 crore had been spent on the general elections. "We are expecting the expenditure to touch Rs 200 crore this time," sources in the CEO office said.

The chief electoral office has also directed to prepare a status report on all the 36,000 booths across the state.

BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb said: "We are always ready to face the elections. The Election Commission has begun the process."

Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra said: "The election are due between November and June. If Narendra Modi decides to go ahead with it, the state has no option but to hold them."

BJP legislature party leader K.V. Singh Deo said: "Being in politics, we are always ready to face elections."

BJP national president Amit Shah is coming to the state on July 1 to review the party's preparedness for elections in the three parliamentary constituencies - Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri.