Punjab Congress on Tuesday appealed to the plot holders not to deposit draconian Jazia tax being imposed upon them in the name of regularisation of colonies terming it as “utter failure of Government machinery to prevent mushrooming of these illegal colonies”.
Maintaining that the State Government has no right to “fleece” tax and “force” the plot holders to pay the Jazia tax, the party made an appeal to the ordinary citizens and plot holders not to deposit the same since it is the “SAD-BJP led State Government which is responsible for allowing mushrooming of these
illegal colonies”. “In a blatant bid to fill empty coffers, the State Government in the garb of regularisation of illegal colonies is imposing huge sums of fees on innocent lakhs of plot holders across the State. Ordinary plot holders are being made to pay for inefficiency of corrupt officers who did not check mushrooming of thousands of illegal colonies across the state over many years. Charging hefty fees running into thousands or lakhs of rupees from individual plot holders is nothing but fleecing, arm-twisting and imposing Jazia tax on them,” said Punjab Congress spokesperson Sukhpal Singh Khaira.
Although charging composition fees even from colonisers now is “illegal and illegitimate”, since it was the government which provided electricity connections, laid road network, provided drinking water and sewerage facilities in these illegal colonies but charging individual plot holders is grossly erroneous, he added.