The Tamil Nadu government will hold area sabha meetings for the first time on November 1, with Chief Minister MK Stalin participating in the area sabha meet of Tambaram corporation in Ward number 6. The Chief Minister will be interacting with people and listening to their grievances, according to local body officials.
The area sabhas will meet once every three months, and according to urban local body officials, a minimum of 200 people are required to convene an area sabha meeting. The area sabha and ward committees will be constituted for urban local bodies and the number of participants depends upon the size of the population of each urban local body.
According to the area committee rules, only people belonging to a particular area sabha can participate in the meeting. The meeting would discuss the pending works, works completed, and needs of the people. The area sabhas are considered as decentralising governance in the best possible manner and is a highly democratic structure, officials said.
A senior official of the urban local body department told IANS, "The area sabhas have been a long-pending demand from the public, and Tamil Nadu government is now fulfilling it. We hope this will help the public to air their grievances and get their issues settled."