Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (MS)

Mangaluru, Jan 14: "More priority needs to be given for accumulating revenue in the budget. Crore of rupees are being lost due to non-collection of taxes. In order to prevent this, plan should be chalked out in the budget to collect huge amount of taxes that are pending to be paid to Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC)," opined citizens of the city in the preliminary meeting before the budget that was held on Wednesday January 13 in the auditorium of MCC.

Speaking on the occasion, social worker Hanumantha Kamath said, "MCC which increases house tax by 15% every year, has not revised the building construction permission fee from 1992. Some of the charges are still in paisa.

"Lac of rupees of taxes are pending to be given to MCC by Kotekar, Local body of Ullal city and gram panchayats. Advertising agencies also have kept crore of rupees pending. Scrap yard of Bunder also has not paid taxes for two years. Only Rs 5,000 is charged per year for the MCC land that is given to the bitumen unit which functions near Pacchanady. What kind of justice is this?"

Mayor Diwakar Pandeshwar, deputy mayor Vedavati, commissioner Akshay Sridhar, members of standing committee Kiran Kumar, Jagadish Shetty, chief whip Premananda Shetty, deputy commissioner Dr Santhosh Kumar and corporator Sudhir Shetty Kannur were present. Social workers Gopalakrishna Bhat and Padmanabha Ullal presented their opinions.

It was suggested to display the names of tax defaulters on a big board in front of MCC and make the public aware of the same. The MCC was urged to collect three times the present amount as taxes from the buildings under the limits of MCC that does not have a parking area. Two young women, who participated in the meeting urged the MCC to form a programme to provide employment to the young generation.

Only a handful of people took part in the meeting that was called to get opinions from the public, as preliminary to the budget preparation. Mayor took to task concerned officials for not informing the public properly. Objection was also raised for the non-participation of officers of revenue department and corporators in the meeting. Opinion was also expressed that this meeting is called for just namesake in earlier years also and this time also the same is happening.

Following opinions were expressed by the citizens:

*The contract of Antony Waste Management, which is taking crore of rupees in the name of waste handling should be cancelled
*Instead of private consultants, MCC engineers have to prepare project report and estimated cost
*From 3 pm, officers of the level of executive engineers should be available in MCC office
*Action should be taken to collect money that has to be paid by RTO to MCC
*E-Khata is getting delayed. If it is done fast, then MCC can collect taxes faster