The Pioneer                  26.04.2013

HUDCO felicitates MP police housing corp in New Delhi

Union Government’s undertaking Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (HUDCO) felicitated Madhya Pradesh Police Housing Corporation for outstanding contribution in basic infrastructure construction during its 43rd annual day on Thursday in New Delhi-based India Habitat Centre.

 The award was conferred to the corporation by Union Housing and Urban Poverty Eradication Secretary AK Mishra. Corporation’s Chairman and Director General SS Lal and Managing Director & Additional DGP Sanjay Rana received the award.

Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta has congratulated corporation’s Chairman SS Lal, Managing Director and Additional DGP Sanjay Rana and other officers and employees for this. He hoped that the corporation will continue to work with same zeal in future also.

It is noteworthy that in compliance with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s announcement to construct 10 thousand houses for police personnel, 2500 houses are being constructed in the first phase with loans from HUDCO. Monitoring of these houses is being undertaken by HUDCO, which found them of highest class on national level. Despite limited resources, the corporation achieved target of `82 crore during year 2011-12 increasing it to `167 crore during financial year 2012-13.

A new police training institute is under construction at Bhauri at a cost of `40 crore. It will be completed by May. The renovation works of Police Training School, Indore costing about `25 crore will also be completed by May.

Excellent works of the corporation include Metro Police Station Habibganj, Model Police Station TT Nagar, Model SAF Company Headquarters Piplani and model residential colony Rustomji Housing Colony.

Not only in big cities, the corporation has also constructed police station, houses and chowkies in tribal-dominant districts Jhabua, Alirajpur, Khargone, Barwani, Naxal-affected Balaghat, Mandla, Dindori districts’ internal areas like Sitapala, Sulsuli, Dabri, Saltekri, Machhurda, Ukwa, Devarbeli, Varaseoni, Gadasarai etc. apart from dacoit-infested areas like Badauni, Jhiniya and Jigna.

Deccan Herald                26.04.2013

Property taxpayers face tough time in poll season

City residents who want to pay property tax are facing deserted ward-level offices of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike. A majority of the personnel attached to these offices have been drafted for poll duty.

The civic agency has set April 30 as the deadline to avail five per cent rebate on property tax. However, many taxpayers have not been able to pay the tax as the ward-level offices have very few or no staff at all. The situation has turned so bad that a tax collection point in Jayamahal Park was closed for a few hours on Friday for lack of staff.

“A tax inspector in the ward office has been hospitalised after he met with an accident. The other one is on election duty and his timings are uncertain. Tax inspector is the only person authorised to sign the computer-generated receipts after property tax returns are accepted with payments,” Shreyar V, a resident of Jayamahal said. He said the citizens were facing the problem for the past two weeks. Since the tax is paid on self-assessment, many citizens need assistance in filling up the forms.

Sukumar R, a resident of Vijayanagar said apart from staff crunch, technical snags also hit tax collection centres quite often. “A few days ago, service personnel took away the computer and printer from a tax collection centre here, presumably for repairs. This resulted in delay of few more days,” he added.

Having no way, many taxpayers are making a beeline for BangaloreOne centres to pay property tax. However, the staff at BOne centres are not well trained in tax collection and the citizens continue to face problems here too.

A senior official from the Palike told Deccan Herald that the staff crunch at the tax collection centres has been brought to the notice of the Election Commission. He, however, said the problem would continue till the completion of the election.

Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha said the Election Commission itself had been facing staff crunch for poll duties. He, however, added that the district election officers had been asked to ensure that essential services were not disrupted in the name of election duty.