Councillors oppose new civic taxes

Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, December 19

Congress councillors have decided to oppose tooth and nail the proposals to impose new civic taxes and hike in some of the existing taxes in the General House meeting of the Municipal Corporation being convened tomorrow (December 20) after a gap of more than nine months.

At a meeting held at the party office today, the councillors and legislators vowed to put the ruling coalition in the civic body on the mat on several new proposals to generate more revenue. Councillors of the Opposition were of the view that there were other means to tide over the financial crisis being faced by the MC rather than putting additional burden of taxes on city residents.

Spokesperson for the Congress councillors Parminder Mehta said both the party councillors and legislators termed the proposed streetlight tax and a hefty city beautiful tax to be collected from hotels, as unwarranted and unjustified. “When the residents are paying property tax and user charges for water and sewerage, additional levy of streetlight on residents and a new tax on hotels, who are already paying house tax/property tax at exorbitant rates will be sheer high-handedness on the part of the civic body,” the Congress councillors opined.

Mehta said the party was of the firm view that the financial crunch in the MC was also of its own making and a result of persistent bad financial management.

“The MC staff has a poor track record of recovery which is evident from mounting arrears of user charges. Same is the case of illegal residential and commercial buildings which are coming up in the city either without approved building plans or else in deviation of approved plans which cause a huge financial loss to the MC by way of building fee or composition fee,” the meeting noted. The councillors resolved to raise all these issues on the floor of the house and make every effort to make the ruling party withdraw these anti-people proposals. “We shall not let the ruling coalition get away with its nefarious designs and will expose their real face during the proceedings of the General House meeting,” the party councillors and legislatorsmaintained. The meeting was attended by Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Surinder Dawar, both Congress legislators, Hem Raj Aggarwal, Balkar Singh Sidhu, Jai Parkash and Ashwani.