Tandon expresses doubts over feasibilty of octroi abolition

Tandon claimed that the state government had sent various teams of officials to states which had abolished octroi or were in the process of doing so but the reports were not encouraging and the experiment had proved disastrous for the civic bodies.

Though the final decision would be taken by the state cabinet, all those concerned were now veering round the idea of retaining octroi to generate the much-needed funds for development works, he added.

The Minister disclosed that a comprehensive municipal Bill had been drafted and sent to the legal department for its approval before presentation in the next Assembly session. The Bill, which would replace the Municipal Act of 1911, Municipal Corporation Act of 1976 and Executive Officers Act of 1931, has been prepared through the efforts of a Cabinet sub-committee headed by Tandon himself along with four other ministers.

The proposed Bill, he added, was targeted at granting more administrative and financial powers to elected representatives besides streamlining the working of civic bodies. It was also aimed at bringing about improvement in quality of civic amenities in urban areas and stepped up resource mobilisation through restructuring license fee and better property management.

The state government would create a special cell at the directorate level to safeguard municipal lands and properties from encroachment. It had been decided to dispose of such properties which were prone to encroachment or were not yielding much revenue, Tandon added.