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VMC seals choultry, backs down as owners get stay order

Friday, 24 February 2017 07:43 administrator
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The Hindu       24.02.2017 

VMC seals choultry, backs down as owners get stay order

The 92-year-old Kowtha Purnanandam Choultry in VijayawadaCh.Vijaya BhaskarCH_VIJAYA BHAKAR  

21 shops were sealed as they had not paid propery tax

Barely two days after the municipal council decided to take action against negligent legal counsel of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation in the High Court, the civic body officials had to face an embarrassing situation of withdrawing seizure of shops in the 94-year-old Kowtha Purnanandam Choultry in Gandhi Nagar. A team of revenue officials led by Assistant Commissioner (Revenue) T. Srinivas Rao on Thursday sealed 21 shops and the lodge being run in the choultry, also called as Purnananda Vilas, which were not paying property tax since long.

“The owners claimed to have exemption from taxes according to orders by Madras Court several decades ago. Later, a local court issued an order in favour of the civic body, and since then we had issued several notices asking the owners to pay tax.

The owners then approached High Court which stayed our action four times for a period of eight weeks each time,” Mr. Srinivas Rao told The Hindu .

“On Thursday as the stay period ended we took action. But in the evening I received another stay order from High Court, which stated that the stay is granted until further orders as the respondent [VMC] counsel did not appear before the court. Earlier stay orders stated that the respondent counsel did not object to the plea of petitioners,” Mr. Rao said.

Property tax of Rs. 25 lakh was levied against the choultry owners for the last 10 years, he said.

Red Cross’s tenants

Meanwhile, tenants of Indian Red Cross Society’s building in Gandhi Nagar came forward to pay the rental value to corporation and requested the officials to accept it as tax. The officials, who accepted it, received an amount of Rs. 40, 000 initially and the rest would be paid as rent.

In a similar case at Satram, shops in the city branch of Red Cross were sealed by officials for not paying dues of Rs. 15 lakh a few days ago.

 

Charges for erecting pandals hiked substantially, NMC to HC

Friday, 02 September 2016 06:23 administrator
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The Times of India     Nagpur           02.09.2016

Charges for erecting pandals hiked substantially, NMC to HC

Nagpur: In some bad news for Ganesh mandals, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), on Thursday, informed the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court that it had already proposed hike in charges for erecting pandals during Maharashtra's biggest festival. NMC counsel Sudhir Puranik informed HC that the proposal on increasing charges had been forwarded to the Standing Committee, where it is pending.

The civic body's reply came in response to the court's directives at the last hearing, where it asked the standing panel to take a decision on revising the fees or charges for grant of permissions to the pandals, welcome arches/gates, flexes, banners, hoardings and stages, before the forthcoming festival season, beginning from Monday.

A division bench of justice Bhushan Gavai and justice Vinay Deshpande then adjourned hearing for four weeks. The court was hearing a plea by Dr Gajanan Zade and Manohar Khorgade through counsel Firdos Mirza.

Earlier, Puranik said the corporation would be charging Rs2,500 for a pandal on less than 300 sq m area, Rs5,000 for structure below 500 sq m and Rs10,000 above this size. He added over thousand application forms for erecting pandals and other structures in various areas of 10 zones had been sold from NMC's single window counter, while about 500 had submitted them with necessary documents. Of these, only 13 mandals were granted no-objection certificate (NOC) so far while four were rejected since their pandals were coming up on main roads.

At the last hearing, the court had allowed pandals on internal roads only, which is a deviation from its earlier orders of September 16, 2009, February 2, March 11 and 27 last year. Surprisingly, it also allowed arches on main roads, after initially prohibiting them, but with a rider that it would not cause any obstruction to free flow of traffic. The twist came after NMC submitted a comprehensive policy to tackle the menace of pandals, welcome arches/gates, flexes, banners, hoardings and stages on roads.

Expressing concern over inconvenience to citizens and obstructions to traffic, the judges said that appropriate fees and penalties should be charged, so that permissions are not sought in a routine and casual manner.

After repeatedly facing the judiciary's flak, NMC came out with a 'Policy to grant permission for erection of temporary structures like pandals, welcome arches/gates, flexes, banners, hoardings and stages, on public streets/ roads/ footpaths/ footways, on occasion of festivals and ceremonies'. It also informed that it had started two helplines numbers (0712-2532474 and 1800-233-3764 (toll free)) for citizens to lodge a complaint if any such structures were causing hindrance to traffic or inconvenience to them.
Last Updated on Friday, 02 September 2016 06:25
 

Unregistered pet dogs will be detained: SDMC

Thursday, 01 September 2016 11:11 administrator
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The Hindu      New Delhi        01.09.2016    

Unregistered pet dogs will be detained: SDMC

Mandatory:The South Delhi Municipal Corporation on Tuesday launched an online registration platform for pet dogs.— File Photo
Mandatory:The South Delhi Municipal Corporation on Tuesday launched an online registration platform for pet dogs.— File Photo

: Unregistered pet dogs found roaming in south Delhi will be detained by the municipality, which on Tuesday launched an online registration platform for the furry friends.

Bruno, a black Labrador who lives in Kotla Mubarakpur, and Danny, a German shepherd from Uttam Nagar, were among the first few pet dogs to be registered online by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).

So far, pet owners were required to visit their zonal SDMC veterinary office to apply for the registration and submit a proof of address, an anti-rabies vaccination certificate of the dog and a photo of the animal.

Good news

Now, a certificate and a token will be generated online. After printing the token, the pet owner will have to laminate it and hang it on the dog’s collar. The civic body has also increased the fee for the annual registration from Rs.50 to Rs.500.

SDMC Mayor Shyam Sharma said all pet dogs were required to be registered with the corporation. The SDMC said in a statement that “any unregistered dog, if found in any public place, would be detained by the Corporation”.

The civic body will also launch an awareness programme on pet dog registrations. The director of the Veterinary Department of the SDMC, R.B.S. Tyagi, said there would also be a census of pet dogs soon, similar to the stray dog census launched last week.

 
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