Ahead of the Assembly elections in Punjab in early 2022, a meeting with senior representatives of Govt.and private technical universities and other higher education institutions was held by Karuna Raju, the Chief Electoral officer (CEO), Punjab to enrol voters in the age group of 18-19 years.
The CEO informed that as per the projected census figures there are 920,014 persons in the age group of 18-19 years and out of those 258,787 are registered as voters, urging the representatives of universities/boards to work as a team with the office of Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab in devising and executing a strategy to bridge this gap.
Those who attended the meeting were oriented about voter awareness activities amongst students through social and digital media. Emphasis was laid on the ongoing Special Summary Revision of Electoral Roll – special drive for registration, correction and deletion of particulars in the voter list.
Representatives of various universities and boards assured full support with regards to registration of unenrolled youth through this campaign.
The IT and Social Media team of the Office of Chief Electoral Officer Punjab gave a demonstration of Voter Helpline App. This is a comprehensive app having features like forms for voter registration and modification, downloading of digital photo voter slips, filing complaints, finding details about the contesting candidates and most importantly to see the real-time results of the elections.
Madhvi Kataria Additional Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab exhorted the officers to be active partners in getting maximum registration of students by ensuring use of Voter Helpline App of ECI. The representatives were apprised about various IT initiatives of Election Commission of India (ECI).
The office of Chief Electoral Officer, Punjab has already conducted a series of meetings with Vice Chancellors of all the Universities in Punjab to ensure enrolment of all the eligible students as voters. Earlier, as per the instructions of CEO Punjab, the voter registration has been added as one of the pre-requisite documents in the online admission in universities and all their affiliated colleges. The unenrolled students are directed to first fill-up form – 6 (for enrolment) being embedded in the online admission forms.
In the meeting senior representatives from Punjab Technical University, Bathinda, Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, Punjab School Education Board, Punjab State Board of Technical Education and Industrial Training, Chandigarh, DPI Colleges and DPI Schools were present.
