Ghumar Mandi shopkeepers close shops in protest against MC notices

Ludhiana: The shopkeepers in Ghumar Mandi came on road to stage a protest against the municipal corporation for issuing notices for depositing the change of land use (CLU) fee for their commercial establishments, on Wednesday. They kept their shops closed from 10am to 2pm in protest against the civic body action. The MC had recently started issuing the notices to commercial establishments which were without permission. Over 1,600 notices have been served in the entire city.
The Ghumar Mandi Shopkeepers Association members showed resentment against the civic body by staging a protest in the market and demanded that the authorities concerned should take back these notices. The shopkeepers claimed that their shops were not constructed recently and were rather very old, but even then notices were being served to them. They also rued the fact that during the pandemic it was not possible for them to pay CLU charges on the basis of the current rate.
These shopkeepers will have to pay CLU charges at the rate of Rs 5,700 per sq yd. They claimed that they had requested mayor Balkar Sandhu, along with area councillor and officials, to roll back this decision and the mayor had even assured them of providing the desired relief. He had even claimed of conducting a house meeting over this issue.
They rued the fact that the mayor did not call any meeting till date even when the matter was very sensitive and the officials had now started sealing the shops. They claimed if the MC did not stop the sealing exercise, they would have to start an agitation on a large scale.
On the other hand, the civic body officials claimed that shopkeepers who were served the notices had started coming for the payment of CLU and those who were protesting were only misleading other shopkeepers and they were trying to bring losses to the public exchequer.
Over a month has passed since the MC officials had started serving the notices to commercial establishments in the entire city. As soon as the notices were served the BJP councillors showed resentment and after that even a few Congress leaders also asked the mayor to roll back the decision. The leaders claimed that the government should support people at this time when their businesses had suffered a lot after the pandemic and this burden would only add to their woes.