Jan 15, 2011: The management of Vikrama Simhapuri University (VSU) will soon enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Election Commission of India (ECI) to enlighten the people on voter enrolment and on the need to cast their vote.
Since universities, colleges and institutions of higher education play a vital role in voter enrolment and in increasing voting percentage, the ECI, too, is asking the students and the faculty to voluntarily take part in voter enrolment and create awareness among the public on strengthening the democracy, said VSU Vice-Chancellor C.R. Visweswara Rao.
Already, the State Election Commission has entered into a MoU with some universities in the State and the VSU is also planning to actively participate in the election process, he said.
Low enrolment
Mr. Rao said that as per information, many first time voters who have just turned 18 years have not enrolled and only 30 per cent of the eligible voters in this age group have enrolled currently. To increase voter enrolment, the staff and students, NCC and NSS volunteers of VSU visited some institutions during the recent local bodies enrolment drive and explained to the students the need to cast their votes, how to fill up forms and submit the claims.
Training
Government should organise training programmes for students and teachers on filling the forms, collection of data, computerisation, election model code of conduct and other details, he said.
University Registrar V. Narayana Reddy said that the students voluntarily visited many PG and professional colleges in the district, distributed the forms, collected them and forwarded the same to the electoral registration officers concerned.
Information
The government should provide information on the electoral process regularly to students.