NEW DELHI: The Modi government has decided to encourage startups in the field of developing electronic voting machines , in its bid to give a fillip to its Startup India initiative. In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the government has decided to encourage startups to come up with ideas on how to develop cheaper yet secure and foolproof EVMs and paper trail machines. According to a source the government took a “conscious decision” to this effect at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting. The proposal received full support from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi “The endeavour is to encourage emerging talent to come forward and assist in this field (EVMs) which has become an integral part of democracy and the electoral process,” a top government official told ET on the condition of anonymity. “The prime minister is very keen on providing a competitive architecture for emerging technologies which can provide cheaper yet foolproof EVMs.Also, the government is contemplating on rewarding any such startup which comes up with a new technology to achieve this purpose,” he added. “But there will be no compromise on element of security since machines have to be foolproof offering no room for tampering.” The government has also decided that for this initiative, startups will also be offered incentives.As of now, only two public sector companies make EVMs for the Election Commission. An EVM consists of a ballot unit and control unit. The government had on Wednesday cleared a proposal of the Election Commission to procure 5.50 lakh new ballot units and 5.45 lakh control units during 2016-17 and approved an expenditure of nearly Rs 9,200 crore for the purpose. The 5,50,000 ballot units (Bus) and 5,45,000 control units (CUs) during 2016-17 will be purchased at a tentative cost of Rs 7,7007 crores and Rs 9,3007 crores, respectively per unit from Bharat Electronics Limited and Electronics Corporation of India Limited.