Representative of different political parties and hundreds of citizens from different wards of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday opposed the hike in holding tax by the BMC.
They all united on the call of Samajwadi Party Odisha State Committee and held a meeting here. They also demanded a Crime Branch inquiry into illegal parking fee collection by the BMC for the last 10 years.
The meeting was presided over by Samajwadi Party State president Rabi Behera where CPM leader Suresh Panigrahi, CPI (M-L) Liberation general secretary Judhistir Mohapatra, Forward Bloc general secretary Jyoti Ranjan Mohapatra, Congress spokesperson Amiya Pandav, Citizens Forum leaders Jagabandhu Sarangi, Subash Panda, Karunakara Hota, Santosh Das and SP secretaries Sudarshan Pradhan and Arun Jena spoke.
They decided to gherao the BMC office on November 1 in protest against hike in the holding tax.
Notably, the BMC has notified to collect holding tax three times higher than the present tax structure making a plea that the benchmark value of different categories of land has been increased 10 times by the GA Department but the present holding is based on 1998 as the base year.
If the BMC goes with the present bench mark value of the land in the capital city then a house owner has to pay Rs 18,000 per annum as holding tax which is paying at the present value at the rate of Rs 6,000 per annum.