Karwar: Ever heard of creating voter awareness in the deep sea? The authorities took this route to educate millennium voters (those born on January 1, 2000) of Uttara Kannada district on the importance of voting. Four of the 13 millennium voters in the district went scuba diving in the Arabian Sea near Light House Island off the Karwar coast on Saturday and they were given enlarged replicas of their voter identity cards after they came to the surface. They were joined by Deputy Commissioner S S Nakul and zilla panchayat CEO L Chandrashekar Naik, who also jumped into the water, and gave away the voter IDs. They also displayed placards highlighting the importance of voting.

The young voters were given their actual voter IDs recently. The four millennium voters who did scuba diving are — Akshay Vilas Govekar, Poonam Ravi Gajanikar, Diksha Mukund Madiwal and Aishwarya of Karwar. The remaining millennium voters couldn't participate in the activity owing to exams.

The event was organised by the Election Commission of India in association with the district administration and the Scuba Diving and Aero Sports Training Centre of Karwar.

The district administration took a special initiative of symbolically distributing voter IDs to the millennium voters while scuba diving in the Arabian Sea near Light House Island off the Karwar coast on Saturday.

One of the participants, Akshay Govekar said he did scuba diving for the first time and experienced the underwater world. He also received his voter ID from the DC while floating in the water. “I was born on the first day of the new millennium and now I got my voter ID while staying afloat on the water surface. I feel so happy and I am thankful to all,” he said.

Later, speaking to reporters, Deputy Commissioner S S Nakul said the district administration and the Election Commission of India organised the event for millennium voters to inspire them to participate in the polling process.

Each and every vote counts and therefore everyone should vote, he said. There are 11,34,513 voters in Uttara Kannada district. As many as 1,434 polling booths will be set up in the district, he said.