The Higher Education department has asked all the higher education institutions in the state to establish or activate the 'Electoral Literacy Club' in order to create awareness among the students about the importance of voting. Through this, the department will have the database of student voters and then take up awareness drive to make all students cast their votes.
“The club will get the data of the students who have enrolled, not enrolled, submitted the application for enrolment, number of eligible students issued Form – 6 for enrolment in electoral roll and number of students who have done online registration and have the code generated. This will ensure all the students who are above 18 years get their name registered. This was also the intimation from Election Commission,” a senior official in the department told DH.
Anil Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary to Higher Education department, said, "This was not active for many years. Now, we have ordered all the colleges and universities to activate or establish the clubs."
Following orders from the government, universities have passed a circular to affiliated colleges to revert back to them with the details. In a circular, the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) has asked all its affiliated colleges and PG centres to ensure the establishment of the club and collect the details of the student voters and revert back to them.
Satish Annigeri, Registrar (in-charge), told DH that VTU is asking all the students to participate in the enrolment process and cast their votes. “This is the biggest responsibility of the citizen. A few students are reluctant towards elections, a few are denied the opportunity to cast their votes as they will not be having the voter IDs and a few students will think the process is time consuming. The club will address all these issues,” he told DH.
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