Engg exams cast a cloud over webcasting of polls

Engg exams cast a cloud over webcasting of polls
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Uncertainty is looming large over the Election Commission of Indias efforts to webcast the voting process from polling booths in Telangana State, which is going for Assembly elections on December 7According to sources, the termend examinations schedule for first, second and fourth year students of engineering and other professional colleges is coming in the way of the ECIs move to rope in stu

Hyderabad: Uncertainty is looming large over the Election Commission of India’s efforts to webcast the voting process from polling booths in Telangana State, which is going for Assembly elections on December 7. According to sources, the term-end examinations schedule for first, second and fourth year students of engineering and other professional colleges is coming in the way of the ECI’s move to rope in students to volunteer for webcasting the process from polling booths.

The colleges affiliated to Osmania University, Kakatiya and other State universities as well as Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) had scheduled the term-end examinations from December 5 to 8. Against this backdrop, the officials are worried that the students though interested might not show up for the job. There are a total of 36,752 polling booths beside another 252 mobile or auxiliary polling booths.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has set up an online as well as WhatsApp registration process. It asked students from the universities and colleges pursuing professional courses and engineering having laptops to register their names. In GHMC area, there are about 3,866 polling booths including 40 auxiliary ones. Sources said that so far only 9,600 students have registered their names through online mode.

A senior official from the GHMC said, “Primarily, the volunteering work was meant to provide a glimpse of how the election process works. The volunteers need to be provided orientation about how to handle their job during the process on the day of the election. For this, the students will be provided with food, accommodation, honorarium and commendation certificate. But, the term-end examinations might make even those registered online might not show up for the training programme.”

According to reports, the officials of engineering colleges in Moinabad, professional colleges affiliated to Osmania, Kakatiya, JNTU-H have notified theory examinations on December 5, laboratory exam on December 6. One college in Aziznagar on the outskirts of the city had rescheduled the examination scheduled on December 7 to 8, though it is a second Saturday, the official said.

When contacted Joint Chief Election Officer Amrapali Kata, said they needed volunteers only in 20,000 locations as unmanned webcasting would be relayed in 15,000 polling booths. The State education department has assured the Commission that it would take up the issue of term-end examinations with college managements, she added.

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