Akin to the practice in most of the Indian States, Kerala government too had exempted soldiers, veterans, and their widows, from payment of house tax. In 2008, when the government curtailed the above benefit restricting it to houses of battle-causalities and war-widows, the injury so caused to demoralise the Armed Forces was raised on the floor of the house and the then LDF government was quick to grasp the facts and rectify the mistake. Soldiers, veterans, and their widows have been availing themselves of the above exemption ever since, irrespective of the floor area of their houses.
The present government has extended this benefit to all citizens so long as the floor area of their house is less than 660 sq ft. Since the government is bound to suffer a substantial revenue drain on account of this, the revenue shortfall was partly overcome by withdrawing the house tax exemption for houses above 2,000 sq ft of soldiers, veterans, and their widows.Pendency of my public interest petition on the issue submitted to the Chief Minister on October 24, 2014, compels one to believe that the government has not yet realised its mistake. I seek the attention of our honourable Chief Minister, lest it send across an undesired wrong message.
Col. N.R. Kurup (Retd.)
Thalassery
Need for BSNL
to introspect
The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has announced that calls from land lines will be free from 9 p.m. to 7a.m. from May 1. Obviously, this is intended to stop the mass surrender of land lines. Such surrenders are taking place, as the customers are disgusted at the performance of BSNL. In Kannur SSA, there is inordinate delay in attending to telephone faults.
The instruments given to the customers are condemned ones. When out of order, it is not replaced. Instrument is the property of BSNL on which they collect rent and it defies logic why customers should take it for repairs. Employees of BSNL are discourteous. Unless BSNL corrects these deficiencies, the surrender spree will continue.
M.K.B. Nambiar
Mahe
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