Bhubaneswar, Sept. 11: Elections to the students’ unions in colleges and universities will be held on September 29, the higher education department has made a formal notification to this effect.

The notification stated that individual colleges would issue notices for the polls on September 18 and the students, who wish to contest, would file their nominations on September 19.

The list of candidates with valid nominations will be published on the same day after scrutiny of nomination papers.

Those candidates, who wish to withdraw their nominations, can do it on September 20. The final list of candidates remaining in the fray will be published at 5pm the same day.

This would be followed by “What I stand for” meeting on September 27. Polls will be held on September 29 and the results will be declared the same day.

The oath-taking ceremony would be held on September 30 after which, all colleges would be closed on account of Dussehra vacation from October 1 to 7.

In other developments, posters and banners by the aspiring candidates have come up on many campuses.

Candidates are also organising freshers’ welcome events and helping new students getting familiar with the institute as part of the campaigns.

The BJB autonomous college last week saw student leaders protesting against lack of proper facilities in girls’ hostels and mindless entry of outsiders on the campus.

Similarly, the Utkal University and the Maharshi College of Natural Law, where elections have been postponed for two consecutive years, are gearing up for the polls this year. Authorities, too, have started contacting the nearest police stations, requesting deployment of police personnel on the campus to ward of any untoward incident.