Hyderabad; Vote sensibly, urge voluntary groups

Hyderabad: With the aim of making citizens clearly understand the importance of GHMC elections and make the contesting candidates commit to their promises, United Federation of Residential Welfare Association (UFERWAS) and various organisations such as Forum for Good Governance, Red Cross, MVF, SRD, LokSatta, COVA, APSA, sSenior citizen forums, RTI forums and several othersheld a meeting in Somajiguda on Thursday.

After the recent floods, UFERWAS along with various NGOs has conducted a survey in various low-lying areas about how there were aeffected by recent floods.We also we tried to find out what was the reason for inundations and how city can be bettered in the future.

UFERWAS in collaboration with other civil society organisations will also organise webinars to apprise citizens of the plans and commitments from the contesting candidates from their wards on various issues, in a bid to help them make an informed decision on electing a transparent and corruption-free municipal administration, said B T Srinivasan, the general secretary of United Federation of Residents Welfare Associations, Greater Hyderabad.

COVA Peace Network in collaboration with University of Hyderabad produced a 30- minute documentary on the recent floods of Hyderabad to make encroachments an issue for elections. The UFERWAS is going to use this documentary to make people fully understand the problem of encroachments which are causing flash floods in the city.

UFERWAS submitted the list of demands to the representatives from each political party and would also be mailing and using WhatsApp groups to let all the residents of welfare associations in different wards know about what their local corporator had promised and how much of it had been delivered.

"We never ask residents to vote for a certain individual or a political party. The residents are free to see the report card and then decide who deserves their valuable vote," added B T Srinivasan.