Summary:
The municipal commissioner Banchha Nidhi Pani had proposed hike in vehicle tax, water tax and property tax to the tune of Rs 41 crore.With Lok Sabha elections in sight, the standing committee disapproved Rs 20 crore hike in property tax, Rs 6 crore in vehicle tax, Rs 5 crore in water tax, Rs 5 crore each in cleanliness and drainage tax. Rajkot: The standing committee of Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Monday rejected the tax hikes proposed by the administration for the 2019-20 budget. The standing committee rejected this proposal saying that till RMC is not able to provide adequate parking space the civic body should not charge parking tax. However, despite the rejection in tax proposals, the budget size was increased to Rs 2,126.10 crore from the proposed Rs 2,057.42 crore.The standing committee has suggested Rs 68.68 crore worth of schemes like renovation of Arvindbhai Maniyar Hall and Shayama Prasad Mukherji art gallery, cleaning of three new party plots, hygienic food street, foot over-bridge connecting Jubili Garden and Gandhi museum and renovation of Jubili garden.The committee while rejecting the tax hikes like 100% increase in carpet area factor proposed for building more than 30-years-old, said that since the RMC was not going to provide any new facility to the affected areas, there was no point in levying additional tax on such properties. The areas that would have been affected by the tax include commercial areas like canal road, Para Bazar, Dharmendra Road, Ghee Kanta road, Soni Bazar, Lakhajiraj road, Jubili Market, Danapith, Bhupendra road, Karansinhji road, Kotharia Naka.The RMC commissioner had also proposed water tax on all the citizen to remove nearly 45,000 unauthorized connections, however, the standing committee was of the view that those people who don’t use RMC’s water and depend on the natural source of water can’t be penalized.Municipal commissioner Pani had also suggested parking charge on congested roads like Racecourse ground, Kalavad road, Yagnik road, Dhebarbhai road, Jamnagar road, Kuvadva road, Jawahar road, Tagore road, Raiya road, University road and Gondal road to curb the traffic problem..