3 lakh students vote for ‘Transform Maharashtra’

The programme is a state-wide competition which has invited solutions from college students on 11 socio-economic challenges including drought, corruption and poverty

“The students of Maharashtra have surpassed all our expectations”, was a statement by one of the organisers of Transform Maharashtra.

Launched on December 26, Transform Maharashtra is a state-wide competition which has invited solutions from college students across the state on 11 socioeconomic challenges faced by Maharashtra. These cover mainly drought, corruption, urban poverty, digital divide, etc.

The objective of the competition is to encourage active involvement of youth in policy planning. The initiative has so far seen engagement of more than 4 lakh college students which is way more than what was expected during the conceptualization.

The competition witnessed around 2300 submissions from around 11,500 students across state. The top 4 themes based on maximum solutions submitted were ‘Smart & Smarter: Development of sustainable & livable cities’, ‘Moulding the future: Reforming Rural Education’, ‘Jai Kisan: Drought-free Maharashtra’ and ‘Clean Slate: Swachh Maharashtra’.

The solutions received from the students are being judged for two exclusive categories of prizes – ‘Judges’ Choice’ and ‘Popular Choice’. To select entries for Judge’s Choice prizes, industry experts in relation to different themes have been brought on board. The esteemed panel of judges includes Shrikant Sinha, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NASSCOM Foundation; Anand Lunia, cofounder of India Quotient, Vandana Goyal, CEO of Akanksha Foundation; Malati Gadgil, co-founder of SWACH and Pranav Jivrajka, Founding Partner, OLA.

The Popular Choice prizes will be selected on the basis of the online voting that has already started and is creating quite a buzz on the internet with around 3.13 lakh votes casted so far. The last day for the online voting is March 31, 2017.

The winners of the competition shall be announced in April.

In the finale event which is scheduled on May 1, the winners shall get the opportunity to present their solutions to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the presence of an audience of 8000 students. Thus, through this competition, youth shall get an incredible opportunity to understand workings of Government.