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.