An awareness programme on Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) was conducted at the Vellore Institute of Technology on Friday.
The District Collector S. A. Raman, while launching the programme for college students, urged them to look at the positive aspects of the VVPAT machines and help the Election Commission to conduct a free and fair poll.
District revenue officials said that they have already provided mobile awareness vehicles that will give demonstration of the working of electronic voting machines and VVPATs ahead of the general elections for which announcements are awaited from the Election Commission of India.
A meeting of officials from revenue, elections and police department was also conducted to apprise the preparations for the conduct of polls in the district.
The meeting was attended by the District Revenue Officer, J. Partheeban and Superintendent of Police Pravesh Kumar among other senior officials from the respective departments. Meanwhile, a programme was conducted at the Government Medical College Hospital in Tiruvannamalai, where the District Collector, K.S. Kandasamy explained various features of the machines to students and doctors. He asked the eligible young voters to come forward to enrol themselves for the voter identity card. He instructed officials to provide Form-6 to those students who are yet to enrol for the voter identity cards.
Assistant Collector (Training) M. Pratap, DRDA director B. Jayasudha, Government Medical College Hospital Principal Vani, Medical Superintendent, M.A. Shakeel Ahmed and medical college students numbering around 500 participated.