Bills passed amid walkout by opposition, two NC MLAs

Jammu: The Legislative Assembly Thursday passed two Bills including one for establishing a Property Tax Board in the state amid a walkout by the entire Opposition and two MLAs of ruling National Conference and an independent member.Correspondent said that house passed two Bills –“Bill to further amend the Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Act-2000 and the Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Corporation Act, 2000 and a “Bill to establish a Property Tax Board in the State— with the unanimous decision of National Conference and Congress members.As soon as the Bills were moved in the House by the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development, Nasir Aslam Wani, entire Opposition, including Peoples Democratic Party, JKNPP, , Bharatiya Janata Party and Jammu State Morcha , two MLAs of National Conference—Mir Saifullah, Nazir Gurezi and independent legislator from Langate, Er Rashid staged a walk-out against the approval of the Bill on ‘Residential Tax’.The members created uproar before staging the walkout. The charge of the protesting members was that the ‘Residential Tax’ Bill was anti-people and ‘harsh’.  Addressing reporters, opposition PDP chief, Mehbooba Mufti rejected the Bill as anti-people and held that the most of people in the state were not position to pay the taxes. Independent MLA, Er Rashid termed the new tax as a “total harsh and anti-people measure”. “Now people will have to pay tax just for sitting in their homes. We claim to be residents of a welfare State, but it is against the concept of welfare state when we ask people to pay money just for possessing a shelter,” he said.“If government is serious to generate revenue, then it should cut costs on its ministers and other extravaganza. Let the huge expenditures on ministers and other government functionaries be reduced and let the expenses on unnecessary security bandobast be curtailed.”  Meanwhile, the government said that no new tax was imposed on properties while it rejected the opposition claims as baseless. Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand, who is also minister for Housing and Urban Development, said no new taxes have been imposed in the amended J&K Municipal Corporation and Municipal Committees Acts while terming the amendments as people friendly aimed at easing tax structure.Addressing a press conference, he said the amendment bills only aim at bringing transparency and rationalizing tax structure with focus on benefitting poor and bringing marked improvement in sanitation and other municipal services for the inhabitants of cities and towns. He said tax slabs have been, in fact, drastically reduced with provision to benefit urban poor. Giving details, he said the tax on commercial property will now be up to 10% while that of residential properties 4% as against 15% of rateable value under the Corporation Act 2000. Lands up to 10 marlas and residential construction thereon is exempted from the tax, he added.In Municipal Committees only commercial properties will be charged with maximum ceiling up to 3%, the Deputy Chief Minister said adding  that residential properties  have been fully exempted. He said the commercial properties in Municipal Councils will be charged up to 7% while residential properties up to maximum of 3 %.Under the Municipal Act of 2000 taxes up to 10% were chargeable in Municipal Committees, he said while asserting that residential properties up to 12 marlas have been exempted by the new amendment in Municipal committees.In addition, he said BPL, agriculture land, hospitals, educational institutions, widows, deserted, divorcees and disabled persons have been exempted through the amendments, which otherwise had to pay tax under the earlier Acts.In yet another pro-poor gesture 20% Municipal funds have been earmarked for basic services to urban poor within Municipal limits, he said.