Team Herald
MARGAO: NGO GOACAN, as part of its ‘Making Democracy Work’ campaign, would be launching an initiative to mobilise young voters to attend and participate in the gram sabhas.
GOACAN coordinator Roland Martins said volunteers from various civic and consumers’ forums will approach sarpanchas to issue welcome letters to all youth from the village who have received their voter cards as new young voters.
“This initiative launched by GOACAN on National Voters Day, will focus on distributing draft welcome letters to the sarpanch of the panchayats with an appeal to issue the same to all the new young voters,” said Martins.
He said the welcome letter informs the youth that being on the electoral roll as a voter makes them members of the village panchayat gram sabha. This entitles the youth to attend and actively participate in the four ordinary meetings of the gram sabha to be held in April, July, October and January during the financial year April 2022 to March 2023. The youth can also attend and actively participate in the four special meetings of the gram sabha that are held on August 15, October 2, December 19 and January 26.
The letter seeks the assistance of the new young voter in the activities of the various committees of the village panchayat on subjects like road safety and traffic management, garbage management, biodiversity management and health & sanitation among others, said Roland.
He further said that the letter also encourages the new young voter to assist the Village Development Committee (VDC) of the village panchayat, which has the challenging task of preparing the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP).
Lastly, the letter reminds the new voters that the youth of today are the future of the village and appeals to them to extend whatever assistance they can provide, especially their knowledge, skills and time for the development and progress of their village.
