Huge response from people against property tax hike, say resident welfare associations

‘Civic body officials should abrogate the draft notification immediately’

A day after the officials from the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) announced that they received 9,297 responses from people on the draft notification issued over property tax hike proposal, members of the Visakhapatnam Apartment Resident Welfare Association (VARWA) and the Federation of Visakha Residential Colony Associations (Nivas) demanded that the GVMC cancel the draft notification immediately. Welcoming the huge response from the public, they alleged that the GVMC has tried to discourage people from responding to the proposal. “The corporation did not arrange any desk or at least a counter to receive responses at sachivalayams and zonal offices in the city. They also did not accept ‘tapalas’ and moreover no email ID was provided to receive responses. Apart from all these, the corporation released the draft notification right in the midst of the COVID-19 second wave and asked people to submit responses within a month. Under these difficult circumstances, people submitted their responses in a huge number and this should be appreciated. People understood that levying property tax on the basis of capital value will be a burden,” said VARWA General Secretary B.B. Ganesh.