First time voters: Jamshedpur�s youth want a young leader who gets their aspirations

Jamshedpur: As the first time voters exercised their franchise, the aspirations of the youths were high. The polling booths were brimming with enthusiasm as the first time voters made a beeline to be part of democracy. The youths want their representative to work to make Jamshedpur as education hub.

�I am really happy to be part of the democracy. Everything was so well arranged in the city. I think the new elected representative from Jamshedpur must work for the high education in the city. For example, none of the colleges in the city offer professional courses of high standards. I did not want to go for a simple graduation from the city, because it does not offer the kind of exposure and opportunities required today,” said, Urvashi Sinha, who is looking to pursue economics (honours) from Delhi. There are many others like Urvashi, who move out because they don’t find quality of higher education up to the mark here.

Kumar Gaurav a first time voter said that the elections of 2019 are crucial. He wants their representative to work for better infrastructure in the field of education. �The level of higher education in the city is still not up to the mark. Various colleges in the city have also introduced courses on office management and information technology (IT) but the job market is still not good. Though the steel city has been facing the threat of brain drain, I want our representative to work to improve the higher education system hopefully students would prefer to stay in Jamshedpur instead of knocking on the doors of colleges in other cities.

Moreover, most of the students after completion of their education settle in other States thus leaving their home place to struggle with exodus of human resource too.

 �The scope to excel is limited here for instance, there is a dearth of good institutes and teachers in the city. If a student wants to study aeronautics, where does he go,� said Rupneet Kaur, a former student of DBMS, who is going to pursue MBA from Indian School of Business Management, Kolkata from this month.

When contacted a senior professor of Kolhan University college, said that the poor infrastructure and educational facilities in the colleges forces students to move for greener pastures.

 Clearly, the emerging set of young voters is looking for accountability from their leaders and will pledge their loyalty based on the work that a candidate does.

Anjali Srivastava, 20, believes that expects the representative to create more jobs by bringing corporates to Jamshedpur. �There are no jobs here for a biotech graduate like me. The government should create more opportunities for youth across the country and there should be no quota,” she said.