The Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) conducted its last hearing session for the complaints regarding the proposed increase in house tax on Tuesday. Around 173 letters had been issued by MCD to the people who had registered their complaints about the raised house tax. Out of them, 104 people participated in the hearing and registered their opinions and problems in writing.
The hearing was held by the team of the officials for four days starting from August 29 during which the people from 60 wards under MCD were called for hearing.
On the last day of the hearing, residents from four wards said that the tax should be raised by 10 or 15% instead of 40%. A resident from Balupur Sushil Virmani said, “In the absence of the regular board, the civic body officers have no right to raise the house tax. Besides, raising the present tax by 10 to 15% is reasonable while raising it by 40% is illogical. The officials should provide us with better facilities before they raise the house tax.”
During the hearing, another resident of Kaulagarh Vinay Sharma said that the tax paid by him was Rs 1642 till last year which is now raised by 40% by MCD.
He, further, complained that the roads are still ridden with potholes despite numerous complaints sent on them. He also said that clogged drains lead to overflowing sewers which are hazardous for health. “We are ready to pay extra taxes, but correspondingly, the civic body must improve the facilities given to us,” he added.
Speaking about the just-completed hearing, the Additional Municipal Commissioner Neeraj Joshi said, “We have heard the problems and also have noted down the suggestions of the people who came from various wards. Maximum complaints are about sanitation and door to door garbage collection.
For this, MCD is about to sign an agreement with a private company which will take up the door to door garbage collection.
This will improve things. We hope that the new system would start later this month. As per the new arrangement, the collection vans would visit the areas twice a day.”
He, further, said that the final report of the house tax would be submitted to the municipal commissioner Vijay Kumar Jogdande in a day or two. Thereafter, the final decision on raising the house tax would be taken, he added.