Live-stream council meetings: Residents

Coimbatore: As many as 7,000 people watched the swearing-in ceremony of new councillors of the city corporation, which was held in Victoria Hall on Wednesday, live on YouTube.
Denizens, who found the web stream interesting, have urged the civic body to continue the initiative, so that they can learn what is being discussed by the elected representatives.
The YouTube channel of the corporation, which was opened recently, already has 600 subscribers. While 21,000 people follow the corporation’s Facebook page, 18,000 people follow it on Twitter.
“Live streaming of the swearing-in ceremony helped us to learn more about the councillors of other wards. While the venue of such events can accommodate only a limited number of people, through webcasting, they can reach out to many more,” said M Vijaya, a resident of Selvapuram.
V Senthilkumar of Saravanampatti said resident welfare associations plan to brief new councillors about the issues that need to be solved. “It will be difficult to know whether they discussed the issues in the council meeting. We should be allowed to watch the proceedings live so that we can learn on which direction the city corporation is moving to provide public amenities and to carry out new schemes,” he told TOI.
It is possible to webcast council meetings, said corporation commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara said. “There is nothing secret about it,” he said.