SURAT: Over 30
Congress party workers were detained and booked on Tuesday for damaging public property following ruckus at the
Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) headquarters in Mugalsarai during discussion on the proposed hike in property tax. The Congress members had gathered outside the committee room where the
tax proposal was being discussed.
Chief security officer of SMC Jagrut Nayak said, "A group of people with some Congress councillors damaged
SMC property. They destroyed safety grill and even broke standing committee display board. Nearly 30-35 of them were detained by police and later released."
The group was led by Congress councillors also damaged fire safety equipment and other items lying nearby.
Sources in SMC also said that while Congress members created ruckus, health of one of the Congress councillors Dinesh Kachhadia deteriorated and was to hospital in 108 ambulance. Kachhadia had climbed on the safety grill that was closed and tried to shake it.
Meanwhile, standing committee of SMC consisting of all 12 ruling BJP members commenced a two-day deliberations over the issue of tax hike. The ruling party is unwilling to accept Rs 543 crore tax hike proposed by the administration.
"We have started with the reviews of different departments and their budgets. We have not yet, touched up on new taxes on the first day, which would come up for discussion on Wednesday evening," a standing committee member said.
"Commissioner has put up a realistic picture in the budget. User charges are charged as we have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with JnNURM to charge 100% user charges. Against the proposed expenditure, we do not have many income sources. We are looking at all aspects and would take decision based on it by Wednesday evening," chairman, SMC standing committee, Rajesh Desai said.
The Congress members had gathered outside the committee room where the tax proposal was being discussed on Tuesday
