THANE: From amongst 15,000 students across the state, a team of six students from a Kalwa college has been shortlisted for the 'Transform Maharashtra' initiative - a brainchild of Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis Vishal Mankar, Sanket Utekar, Viraj Sawant, Danish Patel, Chaitanya Thopte, and Dharmaraj Wadeyar proposed innovative solutions using digital technology to tackle problems related to social crime in the state to Fadnavis. While Mankar and Utekar are the alumni of JVM's New English School & Jr College, the rest are its junior college science students.The initiative is a platform for students to engage with government officials directly and actively take part in policy planning. In the first of its kind initiative, the CM opened the doors to young minds, inviting them to come up with solutions to certain socio-economic challenges faced currently by the state."Out of the 11 themes given to us, we chose to address the issue of 'Balancing the scales: Expedite justice through technology.' We felt it was challenging as compared to the other mainstream topics like corruption, drought, etc," said Utekar, a final year mechanical engineering student.It is also remarkable to know that the candidates were the runners up in the preliminary rounds for shortlisting the best solutions. When online polling began, their ideas received more than six lakh votes.The final phase of the competition will be held on May 1, at the National Sports Club of India, Worli.

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