Voter registration may soon be mandatory for students above 18 years of age for getting admission to colleges in Maharashtra, news agency PTI reported. Taking note of the dismal percentage of voter registration by students of universities and colleges, state Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil said, l "The government will issue a resolution mandating students to get their voter registration done for getting admission to colleges. Patil was speaking at a meeting of vice chancellors of non-agriculture universities at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai.

State Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil announced this during a meeting with of vice-chancellors (V-Cs) of all public universities, called by Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in his capacity of Chancellor to all state universities. The meeting was also attended by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.

Among the other decisions announced are that from next academic year, degree courses will be of four-year tenure – prescribed by the National Education Policy (NEP) – opposed to the traditional three years.

Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, Shrikant Deshpande, who attended the meeting, appealed to

universities to create electoral literacy clubs to involve students in the democratic process, as currently, 90 per cent of university and college students are out of the voter registration list.

As against the goal of attaining the enrolment of 50 lakhs students in the higher education system, Maharashtra has enrolment of only 32 lakh students, Patil said. The minister called upon universities to run a campaign to improve the enrolment percentage. He also said there was a need to take into cognisance the recommendations of NEP regarding providing education in mother tongue and skill development.