Briefly city

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Thursday decided to charge octroi on sugar from July.

Civic body scraps octroi waiver on sugar
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday decided to charge octroi on sugar from July.

We have decided to charge octroi on sugar in Mumbai from July as we have seen that its waiver has not benefited the end user,who is the ultimate customer, said deputy assessor and collector RG Sankhe. He said it was more or less the wholesalers who benefited from the waiver but do not pass on the benefit of low cost to the ultimate customer.

The standing committee of BMC had,in March,announced a waiver of octroi on sugar as directed by the Chief Minister. Officials said the waiver had been granted for a period of three months to bring down the high sugar prices.They said two per cent octroi was levied on sugar before March and its waiver had a negligible impact on octroi collections.

The octroi collection is one of the largest sources of revenue for the BMC,which has set a target of Rs 4,425 crore for 2009-10.

Have public helipads rather than pvt: NGO
The Bombay High Court was today told that rather than having private helipads on top of residential buildings,the state government can mull over having public helipads at designated locations in the city.

The suggestion was put forward by Awaz Foundation who has filed a public interest litigation seeking implementation of noise pollution rules.

The state meanwhile said that they were working on demarcating silence zones all through the state as well as procuring decibel meters. The court has directed the state to file a reply on these issues within four weeks.

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