MARGAO
The BJP-ruled Margao Municipal Council and party leaders find themselves in a tight spot over the proposal to effect a 50 per cent hike in the garbage fee in this current financial year.
While the Chairperson Damu Shirodkar and the Civic Babus have maintained that they had decided to implement the 2020 government notification on garbage collection fees, they have no answer why the hundreds of illegal houses, besides commercial establishments are not brought under the tax net as mandated by a host of government circulars including the 2022 notification.
Chairperson Damu Shirodkar merely said on Wednesday that the council will take a call on implementing the 50 per cent hike in the garbage fees after a study. He also conceded that hundreds, if not thousands of houses and commercial establishments are not paying the house tax, garbage fees and rent to the civic body as per the latest notifications.
In a bid to wriggle out of the situation, the Chairperson said he will soon move for a legal opinion on how to bring the illegal houses, unassessed structures and commercial establishments under the tax net.
Shirodkar was candid in admitting that shops leased out by the civic body are presently fetching a rent as low as Rs 10 in the municipal markets, conceding that neither the rent has been revised for years now.
The question that has come to stare at the MMC Chairperson and the powers that be is - Will the civic body will still impose an additional tax burden on the sincere taxpayers in the form of garbage fees from the existing Rs 600 to Rs 900 “ a hike of Rs 300 per annum when thousands of other structures go scot-free without payment of any taxes?
Incidentally, even as the MMC Chairperson assured a delegation of citizens that the MMC will soon set in motion the process to bring the illegal houses and unassessed commercial establishments under the tax net, the citizens led by former chairperson Savio Coutinho has demanded that the civic body keep on hold the proposed hike in garbage fees and implement the new rates on the honest taxpayers as well as on the illegal structures.
This question may put the ruling BJP in a fix with sources saying any decision to bulldoze with the decision to implement the hike in garbage fees without bringing the illegal houses under the tax net may not go down well with the honest taxpayers.
