The party ruling the Mangaluru City Corporation Council has gone with the usual revision of property tax, water tax, and trade license fee in the budget instead of proposing works that help the corporation generate revenue.
Opposing the budget passed by the ruling party on Thursday, Congress Councillor A.C. Vinayraj said when people are facing hardship following lockdown and other restrictions, the ruling party has proposed increase in property tax, water tax, and trade license fee. “The ruling party increased the burden on people,” he said. The budget does not make any mention of generating revenue from telecom and other organisations involved in cutting roads for laying their cables, he said.
Senior Congress Councillor and former Mayor Shashidhar Hegde said basic of budget preparation was looking at the demand, collection and saving of Revenue, Engineering and other primary revenue generating divisions of Corporation. “I do not see the same being followed for this budget,” he said. “If you (corporation) properly make use of the grants given by the State and Central government and take steps to collect taxes, there would be no need to increase tax rates,” Mr. Hegde said.
Kuteera Bhagya
Leader of Opposition Abdul Ravoof said the corporation has proposed to provide water 24X7 to people without making proper arrangement for source of water. Mr. Ravoof asked the ruling party to increase the amount under Kuteera Bhagya scheme for the homeless from the present ₹25,000 to ₹50,000.
Denying the allegations by Opposition, BJP councillor Premanand Shetty said there was no proposal for increase of any tax. The corporation was surveying properties and bringing more households in the tax net. There was no question of increasing property tax. The Mangaluru Smart City Ltd. was taking up improvement of infrastructure of Urban Primary Health Centre in Jeppu and other UPHCs, he said.
