Merely 9.5% in 18-19 age group are registered voters in Maha

Less than 10% of the youth in the 18 to 19 age bracket are registered as voters in the state, revealed a recent report presented to the government by the chief electoral officer of Maharashtra.

- Yogita Rao

The percentage of voters in this age group from Mumbai city and its suburbs figure at the bottom of all the 36 districts; urban areas also generally record lower voter turnout in polls. Regions such as Parbhani, Hingoli and Nanded fare better than the rest (see box), but the numbers are dismal there too.

Two years ahead of the assembly and Lok Sabha polls, the big question before the electoral body now is how to catch them young? In a recent meeting with the state's governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, higher education minister Chandrakant Patil announced that voter registration may be made mandatory for college admissions for students aged above 18. While it received flak from a section of opposition leaders and legal watchers, what is doable, officials said, is to get them registered at the time of admission. Some mechanism can be worked out to actively involve colleges and universities in the process, they say.