Over 3,000 students roped in for webcasting

The students will cover nearly 5,000 polling booths in Telangana and Seemandhra region during the general elections

A file photo of a student webcasting the poll proceedings during the panchayat elections held in Krishna district.

As many as 3,000 students of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies (RGUKT) have been roped in for the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls due on April 30 and May 7, in Telangana and Seemandhra region respectively.

The students will be at the polling booths to webcast or live stream the poll proceedings in various districts. Students deputed to Telangana districts moved for poll duty on April 29.

Students of the Nuzvid International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) have been webcasting the election proceedings in sensitive polling stations for the last few years. They were roped in for the by-elections and the panchayat polls last year.

Speaking to

The Hindu on Tuesday, Nuzvid IIIT Director Ibrahim Khan said that Collectors of Krishna, Guntur, West Godavari, Nalgonda and Khammam districts had sent requisitions asking to depute students for webcasting of the general elections. “Election officers of other districts too asked to send our students webcasting, but we will depute the students as per the availability of strength,” he said, adding that the students would cover nearly 5,000 booths in Telangana and Seemandhra region.

“We are deputing students to Khammam, Guntur, Krishna and West Godavari districts. This will certainly be a good experience for them,” said Prof. Khan.

Strict vigil

“In addition to the IIIT students, we asked some private universities and institutions to depute their students for webcasting so that the poll officials can observe the election proceedings from the district collectorates and State Election Commission in Hyderabad live,” said the election officers.

“I took part in the webcasting for panchayat elections last year. It is a good system to keep a close watch on trouble mongers, arrest rigging and conduct elections peacefully,” said a third year engineering student P. Sharat.