MC fails to deposit ₹50cr cess to fire directorate

Ludhiana: The fire directorate has not yet received fire cess collected by Ludhiana municipal corporation for the past five years. Around Rs 50 crore is outstanding towards the MC, which has been sent repeated reminders to deposit the amount to the directorate, officials said.
The fire cess was imposed in the year 1993 after a major fire incident in Gur Mandi area when 125 people had lost their lives. The MC recovers this cess from the property tax/house tax and those who keep inflammable material in their premises have to pay a fire cess of 10% of the total tax amount. The directorate says it needs this amount for the improvement of fire brigade branches. The MC, however, is already facing an acute shortage of funds and this amount will be an additional burden to them.

One of the fire officials claimed that MC has been recovering the fire cess for the past 24 years but upgradation of fire department was long overdue. Though under smart city mission, new fire tenders were provided but still many new things are to be introduced. He said the directorate has been demanding the cess since its establishment in 2017 and the city has been collecting this cess since 2013-14 but civic officials are not clearing the dues.
When contacted, MC secretary Neeraj Jain said, “The matter will be discussed with higher authorities and then final decision will be taken over the issue.”
In the coming days, Chandigarh is planning to organise one training session for the city fire officials. Besides this, one fire training school is likely to be established near Dera Bassi to train the fire staff here because they usually have to go to Nagpur for it.