Students must produce voter cards while seeking admission to Maharashtra varsities

Voter registration cards will now be among mandatory documents a candidate above 18 years of age will have to produce while seeking admission to universities in Maharashtra. Aimed at improving awareness regarding voting, this is expected to help dismal voter registration among college-going youth.

State Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil announced this during a meeting with of vice-chancellors (V-Cs) of all public universities, called by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in his capacity of Chancellor to all state universities. The meeting was also attended by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.

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Among the other decisions announced are that from next academic year, degree courses will be of four-year tenure – prescribed by the National Education Policy (NEP) – opposed to the traditional three years.

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A committee of former V-Cs will be formed to resolve issues in the implementation of NEP.

Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, Shrikant Deshpande, who attended the meeting, appealed to

universities to create electoral literacy clubs to involve students in the democratic process, as currently, 90 per cent of university and college students are out of the voter registration list.