Mangalore, Jan 25 (DHNS) : The general body meeting of Mangalore City Corporation, supposedly the last meeting of Mayor Shanker Bhat ran the course without any fruitful discussion, on Monday. 

While the house approved the third time revised Self Assessment Scheme of taxation, the chaotic discussion over the Comprehensive Development Plan was carried over from the last three meetings.

According to the revised SAS, the tax has been fixed at 0.5 per cent for residential structure, 1.5 per cent for commercial and 1.0 per cent for non-residential commercial structures (tile factories, oil mills etc).

The revised version has been now sent to the government and Mangalore City Corporation is expecting the approval soon.

During the beginning of the meet, member Mariamma Thomas raised objection to violation of the previous meet ruling that MUDA officials should be present at the meeting.

She pointed that since there is no post of Deputy Director of Town Planning in MCC all applications for building license is forwarded to MUDA for technical advice. She demanded post of Deputy Director of Town Planning in MCC. However the discussion subsided with arrival of MUDA Executive Engineer Shanker who said that CDP has received 1,811 objections and has been sent to Government for approval on 1-1-2009.

Opposition Leader Harinath said that the proposal copy was not sent to the Corporation and hence demanded that the contents of the proposal must be made known to the corporation. Mayor said that the contents can not be disclosed.
CDP, as pointed by Member Shashidhar Hegde states that any construction to be undertaken next to the roads in the city needs to be carried on leaving 20 ft space from the road. This he said would create problems to people with small land holdings. Following the discussion Congress members assembled at the well of the house.

Trade licence

The opposition leaders took exception to the proposal of handing over survey works of identifying illegal trade in the city to Self Help Groups. Opposition members said that there is no need to hand over the works to SHGs when most of the Group D workers and Bill Collectors are idol in the Corporation itself.

MCC Commissioner K N Vijayaprakash responding to the queries said that official records state that there are only 17,108 trades in the city while it is visibly evident that there are more than 25,000 trades.

“The proposal is to hand over the survey works of identifying trades in the city to SHGs. They will not be vested power to issue or cancel the licence,” he clarified and added that demand register states that corporation should received a sum of Rs 78, 68,000 towards trade licence but it has only received Rs 19 lakh so far.

Another proposal to hand over SAS tax collection to Self Help Group raged the opposition members further who staged a walk out after shouting slogans against Mayor.