MIT students to launch campaign to create awareness on voting

Disturbed by the low turnout of voters for Lok Sabha elections in Pune and errors in voter-id cards,around 200 students of MIT are planning a campaign called Prarambh (beginning) to create awareness on voter registration. “Prarambh will run three major activities in the next two months. We will visit various places in the city for voters’ registration and correction in existing voter id cards. We will also set up centres for accepting voter registration forms and facilitate easy online registration through our portal http://www.prarambh.in,” said Abhinav Shetty,MIT students and one of the founder-volunteers of the campaign.

The 200 students are from various courses like engineering,MBA,BBA and BCA. Other than Abhinav,Abhishek Joshi,Pratik Kadhuskar and Shashank Mengade are also actively involved in the campaign.

The campaign will begin in a full-fledged manner from next week,as the web portal will be ready by then. “Though there are other portals that offer online registration,we decided to launch a new one because our survey indicated that some students found the existing websites confusing. Moreover,we plan to use the portal for activities other than just online registration,” said Aniket Gandhi,BCA student at MIT and a certified ethical hacker.

Through Prarambh,students plan to increase the voter turnout during the upcoming assembly elections by at least 10 per cent. Prarambh was launched at a function held last week. The team can be contacted at 9975621056.