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Delhi

Civic bodies hiking taxes without explaining expenditure: Gopal Rai

new delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday slammed the BJP-ruled South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) for bringing a proposal to hike four taxes – professional tax, unauthorised colonies tax, property transfer tax, and electricity tax.

Cabinet Minister Gopal Rai said that the BJP should clarify where the tax amount was being spent by the municipal corporations. AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said that the Delhi BJP Chief Adesh Gupta should immediately interfere and get the tax hike rolled back. The AAP has said that they would launch door-to-door protests against the tax hike if the hike is not announced.

"Amid the Covid crisis, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation SDMC is coming up with four types of tax hike proposals tomorrow. This decision is very saddening and unfortunate," said Rai.

"The BJP-ruled SDMC is increasing the professional tax which means that doctors, engineers, CAs and other professionals will have to pay more professional tax. Secondly, they are hiking the tax in the unauthorised colonies. The BJP is also increasing the property transfer tax which will hurt the middle-class citizens of Delhi. Lastly, they have decided to increase the electricity tax. The electricity tax is collected by the distribution companies on behalf of the municipal corporations," said the Cabinet Minister.

Rai has sought answers to three questions from the BJP — when the entire nation is going through a crisis then why does the BJP want to increase the taxes? The BJP should clarify where they have spent the money of the MCDs, and what they have done with the money given by the Delhi government to the municipal corporations — alleging that the money has been used for corrupt

purposes.

"The CAG report has observed that the AAP government has given Rs 3,815 crore extra loans to the MCDs. The BJP has used all this money for their corruption. When they have exhausted all the money then they have decided to increase the tax," said Rai.

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