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Wednesday, Sep 08, 2004

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Chautala announces house tax relief

By Our Special Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, SEPT.7. The Haryana Cabinet, which met here today under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, decided to exempt the owners of self-occupied residential buildings, constructed over plots having an area not exceeding 100 sq. yards, from payment of House Tax and all residential buildings from payment of Fire Tax.

This exemption has been granted with effect from April 1, 2004. An official note said that the decision is based on the recommendations of a committee headed by the Haryana Finance Minister, Sampat Singh.

While stating that approximately Rs.84 lakhs had been received on account of House Tax from the houses of this category and Rs. 16 lakhs had been received on account of Fire Tax, the note said that the amount would either be refunded or adjusted.

The Cabinet also approved the revised tariff of electricity for agriculture pump sets by introducing a uniform rate of tariff for both metered and unmetered connections thus withdrawing the slab system of tariff and benefiting the farmers to the tune of Rs. 138 crores.

In case of metered category, there would be a uniform rate of 25 paise per unit for all the four levels prescribed for depth of tubewells that is up to 100 feet, 101-150 feet, 151-200 feet and above 200 feet. Earlier, this tariff was 65 paise, 53 paise, 46 paise and 38 paise per unit respectively. In case of flat rate, there would be a uniform rate of tariff of Rs. 35 per BHP per month for all the four levels of depth of tubewells that is up to 100 feet,101-150 feet, 151-200 feet and above 200 feet. Earlier, there were four rates for this category too, that is, Rs. 104, Rs. 78, Rs. 63 and Rs. 48 per BHP per month respectively.

The State Government would be required to reimburse the additional rural subsidy to the tune of Rs 138 crores annually to the power utilities. It may be recalled that the State Government had constituted a High Power Committee under the chairmanship of the Finance Minister in March 2002 to review the slab system of agriculture tariff following representations from many farmers against the existing slab system of power tariff under which the neighbouring tubewells in two adjacent Patwar circles were required to pay different tariffs. Also, several consumers had contested the depths assigned to their Patwar circle on the ground that the actual depth of sub-soil water in their areas had gone further down and necessitated a re-survey.

The Committee had observed that the water table in general had gone down in most of the areas in the State with the passage of time and a large number of consumers were now pumping out water from much deeper depths. Therefore, the differential concessional tariff was no longer serving the desired purpose and there was a need to review the tariff applicable to agriculture tubewells. A number of alternatives were suggested and the Chief Minister decided to remove any perceived discrimination on account of varying depths of water table and also in view of the prevailing dry conditions.

The Cabinet decided to constitute a 16-member committee under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary to Chief Minister to work out the modalities for execution of the Rs.1,600 crore project of 130-km long Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Express Highway. The project would be executed through competitive bidding on the principle of Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT). The salient features of the link Express Highway include a non-stop four or six-lane high-speed access-controlled toll road for fast movement of vehicles, elevated pass at the junction of any road or rail track, under-pass for cattle, carts and tractors in the countryside at the existing tracks and constant policing of the highway for smooth and safe flow of traffic. There would also be arrangement for quick removal of any vehicular breakdown.

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