CURCHOREM: The business community under the jurisdiction of Curchorem-Cacora Municipal Council vehemently opposed the decision of the council to impose the sanitation fees with effect from April 1.
At a meeting held at the CCMC hall in the presence of Vice Chairperson Piedade Diniz and Chief Officer Kapil Phadte, the stake holders strongly opposed the decision of the council to levy the sanitation fees which comes to more than Rs 15,000 per year according to traders.
Stating that the meeting called by CCMC was not attended by the chairperson, President of Curchorem Market Association Rocha Pereira said that the new tax in the form of sanitation fees has been announced unexpectedly without taking any trader/s into confidence and without following proper procedures.
“The proposed fees are very high, so we objected to it as we cannot afford to pay so much of fees,” said Pereira and informed that the fees are also overlapping the Swachh Bharat fees.
According to Pereira, Councillor Balkrishna (Pinty) Hodarkar who was present for the meeting informed them that the resolution was taken to introduce the sanitation fees during the council meeting but the amount was not discussed.
When contacted, Chairperson Felix Fernandes said he could not attend the meeting due to some unavoidable urgent work he had attended.
“The decision was taken to implement the sanitation fees after several deliberations in the council meetings to fix the different rates as per the establishments. But I will still study their demands and accordingly put before the council for necessary action,” Fernandes assured.
Power Minister and local MLA Nilesh Cabral told Herald that now the councils have to generate their own income and the proposed fees are not very exorbitant.
“The respective amount for different establishments/residents are fixed after several discussions held in the presence of all the councillors during the council meetings which I had attended, but even then I will request the council to hold another meeting with the stake holders and listen to their grievances,” Cabral said.
He also informed that for the last nine years he was collecting garbage from the entire Curchorem constituency on his own besides sanctioning grants to municipality from the government to collect the garbage.
“It is people’s municipality and therefore all must cooperate and help the municipality to generate more revenue so that they can provide all the basic necessities to the people besides keeping the city clean,” Cabral added.
