Levying ‘true-up charges’ to make up for losses incurred years ago is unheard of in a civilised society, said members of the A.P. United Citizens Forum who launched an awareness drive here on Monday to highlight the impact of tax hikes implemented by the State government.
Forum president S.A. Rasool, general secretary A.G. Rajamohan, secretaries Satyanarayana Reddy and S. Rahul and treasurer T. Ramakrishna fanned out across walking arenas and parks such as Police Training College ground, Rajiv Children’s Park, JNTU, and Govt. Arts College as well as colony parks in residential areas to create awareness on the hike in property tax, and user charges for garbage collection under the new CLAP scheme by the Anantapur Municipal Corporation.
Residents of the Housing Board and Gandhi Bazaar were explained about the new system of assessing property tax, user charge on garbage collection, borewell water used in the gated community and residential apartments, and true-up charge levied by the Discom.
“It is the basic responsibility of the government to provide surface water to all residents. In the absence of this, residents are left with no option but to utilise groundwater. Moreover, as the apartments are on non-commercial premises, imposing user charges based on consumption is undemocratic,” the Forum members said.
The residents were asked to speak up and demand the government and municipal corporation to roll back the taxes/user charges forthwith and deduct the collected amounts in the ensuing bills.
