Four Assam Panchayat leaders to attend I-Day celebrations at Red Fort

Four Panchayat leaders from Assam are among a select group of special guests at this year’s 79th Independence Day celebrations at the Red Fort in New Delhi on August 15. They will be joined by their families as part of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj’s nationwide initiative to recognise and honour elected representatives at the village level.

In total, 210 Panchayat representatives from 28 States and Union Territories have been invited for the occasion. With their spouses and nodal officers accompanying them, the delegation will comprise 425 participants.

The Ministry will host a formal felicitation in New Delhi today, with Union Minister of Panchayati Raj Rajiv Ranjan Singh, also known as Lalan Singh, and Union Minister of State S. P. Singh Baghel presiding over the ceremony.

Coinciding with the event, the ministry will unveil SabhaSaar — an Artificial Intelligence-based tool capable of producing structured minutes of meetings from audio and video recordings of Gram Sabha and other Panchayat sessions.

Dhiraj Mahanta, a Zila Parishad Committee member from Kamrup district and one of the invitees from Assam, said the recognition was deeply meaningful. "I feel extremely privileged for this opportunity. This is the first time in my life I am experiencing such a significant occasion. I am deeply grateful to the government for this honour," he said.