The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Monday demanded that the State government devolve more taxes to the civic body to empower it financially.
The civic body discussed resource mobilisation during the special council meeting on Monday in the run up to the BBMP budget.
Leader of the Opposition in the Council Padmanabha Reddy said that the State government was collecting ₹200 crore as entertainment tax, ₹504 crore as professional tax, and ₹328 crore as luxury tax from the city alone.
“In Chennai for instance, these taxes are devolved to the city civic body. Here too the state government should devolve these taxes to BBMP,” he said, adding that the civic body should concentrate on resource mobilisation through betterment fee and rent from BBMP properties.
M.K. Gunashekhar, chairman, standing committee on taxation and finance, said that devolution of taxes has been a long-standing demand from the civic body and have appealed to the State government.
Meanwhile, intermittent road cutting by various agencies and private firms led to a ruckus in the meet. BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad clarified that henceforth, any agency — government or private — have to take permission from BBMP submitting GIS information of the road cutting site on its website, which will be matched with the GIS data on newly laid roads. This will prevent any road cutting work on newly laid roads, before one year of the road being laid, he said.
