Chennai: The corporation, in its council meet on Thursday, made it clear that the traders at Koyambedu market could not be exempted from tax. It was also noted that the Chennai City Municipal Corporation Act had no provisions to relieve the tax payable by the traders to the civic body.

Replying to ward councillor M. C. Munusamy on the issue of tax collection at Koyambedu, Mayor Saidai S. Duraisamy said that the City Corporation must have been actively involved in collecting property tax from the shops at Koyambedu, but it had failed to.

“Out of the total of 3,194 shops present in the area, 2,089 shops have been issued the tax assessment notices of which 472 are regular payers of property tax,” said the mayor, noting that the corporation’s revenue department failed to assess the tax for the remaining 1,096 shops.

“Investigations on the reasons behind the inconsistent tax collection are going on and action would be taken to revive the loss which occurred due to the errant officials,” mayor Saidai Duraisamy added. The corporation passed a resolution on a similar note to streamline the issuance of a trade licence to commercial establishments in the city.

The resolution stated that the trade licence should be made an essential component to obtain electricity or water connections for the shop. In another resolution, the Corporation resolved to bring in quality control and an assessment module to ensure that civic projects that crossed `1,500 crore were not done in a sub-standard way.