PATNA: House owners in the city will have to shell out more for holding tax as the standing committee members of the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Saturday approved a hike of 15%. The proposal would go to the state urban development and housing department for final approval.
The proposal got passed in the 45th standing committee meeting chaired by Mayor Sita Sahu here on Saturday attended by eight empowered members, including deputy mayor Meera Devi, and PMC commissioner Himanshu Sharma.
According to the sub-section 7 (iii) of Section 127 of the Bihar Municipal Act 2007, holding tax can be raised by 15%. It was last increased in 1993.
The municipal commissioner said the holding tax is an important revenue source for the civic body, and it has not increased in over 17 years.
“The holding tax hike proposal would get tabled before the board meeting of PMC, and after its approval, it will get implemented accordingly,” Sharma said. However, he did not specify when the tax increase would come into effect.
Altogether 18 proposals were approved at the standing committee meeting, including smart parking facilities in the city, a drama school in Patna City’s Rajaghat, drinking water pipeline scheme, purchase of equipment for sanitisation and vehicles for door-to-door garbage collection among others.
Mayor Sahu said the PMC would float the bidding to invite an agency for the smart parking system. “The purpose of a smart parking system is to stop the fraudulent collection of parking charges from residents in the name of PMC. Due to the illegal collection of parking charges, the civic body incurs huge losses. So, a proposal to operate all thirty-four PMC car parks in the city under the public-private partnership (PPP) model has got passed,” she said.
Purchase of 150 e-rickshaws and 60 CNG-powered closed auto-tippers (10 each for Azimabad, Bankipore, Kankerbagh, New Capital, Patliputra and Patna City circle) for door-to-door garbage collection has been allowed. The PMC has a total of 182 twin bin e-rickshaws and 375 closed tippers.
The civic body has approved the penalty rates for cow ranch for littering cow dung at public and open places. The cattle owners will have to pay Rs 1,000 for dirtying roads and clogging drains, the second time they have to Rs 2,000 while Rs 5,000 for a repeat offence. Besides, the PMC will provide one auto-tipper for cow dung collection from cowsheds for biogas production.