AMC to impose license fee upon business fraternity!

Aurangabad, Feb 8:

The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is left with no option but to collect the License Fee from the business fraternity as the state government's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has ordered the principal secretary of Urban Development Department (UDD) to attend the hearing and submit his say over the delay in its implementation. Accordingly, the principal secretary will be submitting his say on Wednesday.

After the result of the hearing, the AMC may start collecting the fee from April 1. Earlier, the Accountant General (Nagpur) had taken a serious note over the delay in collecting the fee by AMC.

Seven years ago, the state government had ordered the AMC to collect the fee, but the civic body showed no interest in implementing the order. As a result, the AG (Nagpur) gave negative remarks. Two years ago, the AMC general body (GB) passed the proposal. Accordingly, the AMC also started to collect the fee, but there was strong opposition from the business fraternity.

In the meantime, the AMC was deciding to rope in private participation to collect the fee, but considering the emotions of the merchants and traders, the civic chief A K Pandey preferred collection of fee by AMC staff. Before AMC takes any action, the PAC took a serious note of the delay and called the principal secretary for the hearing. The AMC will now have to explain in details on how it would be collecting the license fee.

The collection of the license fee is already started by Amravati, Akola, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Meera-Bhayander and other municipal corporations. Seven years ago, the AG-Nagpur hoped that the AMC might record a collection of Rs 1.33 crore through license fee and now, it is hoped that the AMC would be collecting at least Rs 8 crore per anum.

The AMC's assessor and collector of tax Aparna Thete said, " The AMC is already collecting property tax through its ward office staff from all the nine zones. Accordingly, the license fee will also be collected by the civic personnel. Prior to it, there is an opportunity for the traders to bring their properties under tax ambit if they are not on record."