HT Correspondent
JORHAT, MARCH 15: Enraged by the steep hike in property taxes on commercial and domestic residences of the town as proposed by Jorhat Municipal Board, residents in large number came out on Wednesday to the JMB office to protest against the decision.
People from all sections of society across 19 wards under JMB submitted a memorandum to the JMB chairperson and voiced their strong objection to the manifold proposed increase in the taxes to be imposed from April this year. The people demanded that the tax hike should not be implemented.
Stating, that the process undertaken to reassess the properties was not as per the rules governing the municipal bodies the valuation has done without a proper value, leading to huge jump in the taxes, in some cases between 100 to 500 per cent.
Demanding a proper reassessment survey to be done as per the norms of the Municipal Act, the protesters sought that the people should be taken into confidence during the exercise.
Later the protestors told newspersons that they have sought the intervention of the chief minister and elected MLAs and MPs on the matter and understand the burden to be imposed on the tax payers, already hit severely by the Covid pandemic situation.
They also sought that all the 19 ward commissioners irrespective of their political affiliations support the people. It may be mentioned that in the past few days, series of citizens’ meetings were held in various localities of the town in which residents have strongly opposed the proposed tax hike and questioned the quality of services offered by the civic body, which has been mired in controversies, leading to three persons each occupying the chairperson’s and vice chairperson’s posts in the past six years.
