The Election Commission has cleared the relocation of the office of the Bengal chief electoral officer, setting up another possible clash with the state government, which had sat on a request to approve the proposal since May.

The CEO now functions from the Balmer Lawrie building on 21 N.S. Road; its new address will be the Shipping Corporation building on 13 Strand Road.

Sources in the poll panel — whose sanction is legally sufficient for the change of address — said the approval was given since the existing office was too cramped and was deemed vulnerable from a security point of view.

“Keeping in view the administrative, space-related and security and considering the exigency, the Commission has approved to hire the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Shipping House, 13 Strand Road, BBD Bag, Kolkata,” a letter from the commission to the Bengal CEO’s office on Friday said.

The letter makes it clear that the poll panel will foot the bill for setting up the IT and related infrastructure at the new office, as well as for renovation and other logistic
arrangements.

The CEO is to take up the subject of the rent with the state government.

Multiple officials at Nabanna said the poll panel’s decision to allow the relocation “without consulting” the Bengal government might not go down well with the state’s top brass.

“The EC has sent a copy of the approval to chief secretary Manoj Pant. But the state government was not consulted before approving the relocation proposal,” an official said.

“As the CEO’s office functions under the administrative control of the state home department, the EC should have consulted the state.”

A bureaucrat said that when the CEO’s office sent the proposal to Nabanna earlier this year, the chief minister had asked senior officials to find a building owned by the state government where the office could be shifted.

“Apparently, the chief minister did not want a wing of the state government to function from a central government building,” the bureaucrat said.

“While the search was on, the EC has allowed the office to be relocated to the (Centre-owned) Shipping Corporation office.”

Poll panel sources said the state would have to spend less on the new office compared with the existing one.

“For the new office, it’s 18,000sqft at ₹85 a square feet a month. The state government will have to spend ₹15.3 lakh a month (₹1.836 crore a year) on the rent,” a source said.

“The state was paying a rent of ₹1.8 crore a year for the much smaller current office of the CEO, and an additional ₹20 lakh for maintenance.”

Apart from this, they said, the 6th floor of the Balmer Lawrie building had to be hired for four months during elections for an additional ₹50 lakh. Such expenses would not be necessary at the new office.

“More than 100 officers and staff will be able to work from the new office, a number that was virtually impossible to accommodate in the existing office,” a source said.