Mangaluru: Colleges across Dakshina Kannada will start enrolling new voters who will be 18 years old by January 1, 20223, and are studying in undergraduate and other courses.

According to the district administration, this is an initiative that aims to enrol as many as 32,000-35,000 students who will become first-time voters.

Giving out the details, Dr K V Rajendra, deputy commissioner of Dakshina Kannada, said that the enrolment will be done through the Voter Helpline App. “Most of those who completed 18 years are in first year UG courses. They concentrate on academics and show no interest in getting enrolled on the voters’ list. So, there is a rush when elections are near. This results in several errors on the list. In order to avoid the last-minute rush, the district administration has come up with this campaign that will be held across the district soon,” he said.

According to the plan, principals will be appointed as nodal officers. If that is not possible, then the senior-most faculty member has to be given the responsibility. Further, a lecturer will be assigned to each class and be given the task of collecting details of all students who are 18 on or by January 1, 2023, but have no Voter ID. The college will compile the details and a mass enrolment will be done in the coming days. The dates of the mass enrolment are yet to be finalised, Rajendra said.

Karnataka, an education hub, is home to thousands of students. The district administration has estimated that close to 70 per cent of students don’t have a Voter ID.

Kumar, the CEO of the Dakshina Kannada zilla panchayat, said there are fewer young voters aged between 18-19 years in Dakshina Kannada when compared to other districts. “Our aim is to enrol new voters through the Voters Helpline app and discourage the manual system. A daylong training for nodal officers heading the campaign is planned on December 23. The nodal officers will be given information and training on which documents to collect for the enrolment.”