Rajahmundry: In a bid to help all eligible voters, especially the youth, to exercise their franchise in the ensuing general elections scheduled to be held in 2014, the authorities have taken up a special drive to enrol all the eligible persons in the electoral rolls mainly on December 15 in West Godavari.
According to 2011 census, West Godavari is having a population of 39.36 lakh and out of them, nearly 28 lakh people registered as voters while the hunt is on to enrol as many as 1.28 lakh people, mainly the young voters in the electoral rolls. Collector Siddarth Jain has called for a publicity drive for two days on December 13 and 14 by taking out rallies to educate people on the importance of enrolling as voters.
As part of the enrolment drive, the authorities have given away Form-6 applications to the principals in the colleges asking them to get them filled with all the requisite details by the students who are expected to complete 18 years of age by January 1, 2014. Concerned tahsildars are entrusted with the task of monitoring the exercise.
The authorities have also appointed three students called as ambassadors for each college and they are asked to motivate and help the students fill in the application forms and these filled applications forms will be collected from the students by these ambassadors and they will be handed over to the concerned revenue authorities to enrol their names in the electoral rolls.
The authorities have fixed the last date for filing of claims to enrol as voters in the electoral rolls on December 17. Revenue authorities are posted at every polling station and they will be available from 10 am to 5 pm to receive claims from the people for enrolment as fresh voters and also for making any changes related to names, residential address and any other details.
The authorities maintain that out of 1.28 lakh people yet to be enrolled as voters, nearly 30,000 will be students while some others will be youngsters in villages while some more might have already registered as voters elsewhere.
They say that namaes of those who enroll in the electoral rolls by December 17 will appear in the final electoral rolls to be published on January 15, 2014 and all these voters will get electoral photo identity cards.
West Godavari district revenue officer K. Prabhakara Rao said, “We appeal to all those who are yet to enroll as voters to do so in the next few days. Enrolling in electoral rolls is a regular and permanent exercise.
