Indian Express 07.10.2010
Civic body relents, reverts to old rate of octroi for gold merchants
Express News Service Tags : PMC, Arvind Shinde, Congress, Posted: Thu Oct 07 2010, 05:40 hrs
Pune: With gold merchants challenging the civic administration over the octroi charges dues and threatening to file a defamation case against elected representatives for making statements that ‘malign’ their image, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) standing committee on Wednesday decided to revert to its earlier stand of charging octroi at the rate of three per cent on gold as against .35 per cent in this financial year.The proposal to revert the decision was tabled by Independent corporator Ujjwal Keskar. The NCP urged for taking administrative suggestion before taking a decision but the Congress, BJP, Shiv Sena voted in favour of the proposal of reverting the octroi charge to earlier rates.
Standing committee chairman Arvind Shinde said the proposal to revert to old octroi charges will be tabled in the general body meeting for final approval so that it can be send for state government’s nod.
The civic body had been taking up the case of gold merchants and as a result the octroi rate has been reduced from three per cent to 0.35 per cent. But the merchants refrained from clearing the dues and have criticised the civic body. If all the traders are paying charges regularly then the gold merchants cannot be given special treatment by not taking any action against them for octroi evasion,” Shinde said.
The Pune Saraf Association has threatened to file a defamation case against the elected representative for demanding civic administration to book the octroi evaders under MCOCA for not paying the dues worth Rs 350 crore, including the penalty for delayed payment
Shinde said he was prepared for any legal battle with the gold merchant as he spoke within the powers vested to him as an elected representatives. “I am of the opinion that a CID inquiry needs to be conducted in the way the octroi rates on gold were brought down from three per cent to 0.35 per cent,” he said.
