Protest vs protest: GMC staff, councillors lock horns in property tax tussle
Councillors have been staging a sit-in protest since Friday, which continued into Saturday. At the core of the conflict are the minutes of the June 30 GMC board meeting, in which the board repealed the proposed property tax hike.
Employees said the councillors' demand for board meeting minutes will be met after the kanwar yatra ends. But the councillors accused officials of orchestrating the counter-protest to undermine their agitation.
They also questioned the legitimacy of the employees' protest, calling it a diversionary tactic in the ongoing dispute over tax policy and transparency.
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Councillor Neeraj Goyal said, "We suspect foul play. For the past 17 days, GMC officials have been deliberately holding back the minutes of the meeting under various pretexts, while at the same time sending tax notices to residents based on the hiked rates. As elected representatives, we are answerable to our voters, and GMC officials are operating as an extra-constitutional authority."
Another councillor, Manoj Goyal, alleged GMC officials were behind the employees' protest. "The issue of property tax and the minutes of the GMC board meeting do not pertain to them, and yet they are protesting ostensibly at the behest of officials. The officials are public servants, while we are public representatives, and our authority and rights are being undermined," Goyal added.
Mohan Chauhan, a GMC employee, said, "The councillors are disrupting GMC's daily operations at a time when the kanwar yatra is going on.
As for their demand, the municipal commissioner has assured them the minutes will be shared after the yatra concludes, and yet they are protesting."
Meanwhile, a GMC official said, "A case has been filed in the Allahabad HC against GMC's decision to impose an increased property tax, and even though the GMC board repealed the proposal, the matter is still pending in the court, and we are awaiting the court's final orders."
The hiked property tax came into effect on April 1. The property tax rates before April 1 were between Rs 0.32/sq foot on properties with less than 12m of road width, Rs 0.48 to Rs 2 for roads 12–24 metres wide, and Rs 0.65 to Rs 2.41 for wider roads. The revised rate is between Rs 0.75/sq foot to Rs 4/sq foot. In March this year, the board passed the proposal to link tax with the DM circle rate. GMC calculates tax based on the annual rental value (ARV) of a property.
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