No polls for 3 years in 40 percent housing societies in Mumbai
Around 200 members of the big housing societies and townships will have to cast vote through an option of secret ballot for electing new management for the committees. The new rules and regulations passed by the State Cooperative Election Authority (SCEA), says that there are approximately 40 percent housing societies in Mumbai region who have not conducted elections for three years. All these housing societies will have to cast their votes to form their management committee before 31 st December.
However, the societies that are having less than 200 people can select new members by voice vote, by raising hands in the presence of a presiding officer who will be selected by the SCEA for the voting process. Previously, without any election officer, all these housing societies use to select their committee members.
The state has also pronounced that these elections are going to be held in all types of cooperative societies like cooperative banks, mills, housing societies, and credit societies. The main point of these elections is to select a new managing committee. These elections will be held at the places where there were no polls held for the past three year or five years. These cooperative societies add up to 40 percent of the 70,000 societies in the metropolitan region of Mumbai.
Moreover, the officers of SCEA have set up everything with required planning for the poll.
One of the other regulations set the polling authority is that the members who are defaulters of the maintenance charge for the last various months will not be allowed to cast vote. Previously, they were not allowed to contest in polling but they could vote. In the new set-up, everyone who is interested will have to clear his/her dues before casting the vote. A new scheme that has been launched is that the people who are going to contest elections will have to submit a fee up to Rs 1,000, which will be used for the betterment of SC/St candidates.
According to Ramesh Prabhu, the president of Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association, secret ballot is the best way of voting system for small societies. He also added that societies will have to submit their dates and lists of registered members to the local registrar at the earliest. After the collection of all the lists, deputy or assistant registrars will send the matter to SCEA for verification. Therefore, after that the polls would be conducted.
housing societies, Housing Societies in Mumbai, Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association, metropolitan region of Mumbai, SCEA, State Cooperative Election Authority, Townships
