Members of the Belagavi Cantonment Board Residents Welfare Association have welcomed the decision of the Ministry of Defence to prohibit collection of all transit charges through Cantonment areas. The order applies to the Cantonment areas across the country.
“The collection of these charges, called Octroi, then entry tax, then licence fee, or toll, caused hardship to people merely passing through Cantonments and also led to some unfortunate events such as accidents. In some cases, there was no transparency in the collection of the fee. We fought against this successfully in the High Court. The eight public interest litigation petitions argued against the imposition of such fees. Following this, the Ministry has issued relevant orders,’’ said Nitin Khot, one of the petitioners.