SRIKAKULAM: The ‘Snake and ladder game’, that was launched to create awareness about voter enrolment among students, has been drawing huge response from the student community in the district.
However, the response from other young eligible voters to get themselves enrolled as voters is poor. Out of more than one lakh young population in the 18-19 years age group in the district, not more than 1,300 people enrolled themselves as voters so far.
Keeping this in view, the awareness programmes based on various themes and games were designed for spreading awareness among students. Voter enrolment forums were also created in colleges by their managements. There are 124 affiliated degree colleges in the district under the purview of Dr BR Ambedkar University.
Srikakulam Government Degree College principal Dr Babu Rao said the games like ‘Snake and ladder’ and ‘Ludo’, aim to spread awareness among students on the importance of voting. The NSS programme officer has been deployed as a voter enrolment ambassador for the college, he added.
“Besides creating awareness among students in the university and its affiliated colleges about voter enrolment, we are uploading the applications through online system for voter enrolment,” said Dr B R Ambedkar University College principal G Tulasi Rao. About 60,000 students are studying in the university and its affiliated colleges in the district. No student would be left without enrolment after the due date, he added.
District Joint Collector KVN Chakradhar Babu said that out of the 110,086 people in the 18-19 years age group, only 1,313 candidates have enrolled themselves as voters so far. “Keeping this in view, we have started voter enrolment drives at degree colleges. We are also using Intermediate students and high schools students to create voter enrolment awareness. Electoral literacy clubs and voter enrolment forums have been formed in all schools and colleges, he said.