HYDERABAD: The unexpected dissolving of the Secunderabad Cantonment Board's civilian body has put one long-pending demand of the Cantonment's residents on the backburner once again.

The seven members of the Board, according to sources, are planning to move a resolution and forward it to the Centre, asking for abolition of octroi and toll taxes in SCB jurisdictions. However, the Central gazette notification dissolving the civilian body came like a bolt from the blue, barely a week before the Board meeting that was supposed to move the resolution.

With this, the tender process of the octroi and toll taxes in SCB could be held shortly as per schedule. Last year, contractor K. Sreedhar Reddy won the bid to get control over the 11octroi gates at a whopping Rs.5.3 crores while his toll tax rights were priced at Rs.2.1 crore. This was against Rs.3.7 crores for octroi and Rs.1.6 crores for toll tax in 2005-2006. The contract rates have seen an astronomic rise over the last few years. In 2003-04, the toll tax rights were worth Rs.89 lakhs while octroi rights commanded Rs.2.07 crores. This was against the Rs.41 lakh-toll tax contract and Rs.1.71 crore-octroi price in 2002-03.

Octroi has been a political football in the Cantonment for quite a long time, with the State Government and SCB not arriving on a consensus on the issue. Last year, after the octroi and toll tax tender process for 2006-2007 saw contracts for both soaring to reach a cumulative of Rs.7.4 crores, the Board officials had said the Board would persist with octroi since its abolishment would only lead to a "loss of revenue".

Earlier resolutions passed by the Board in 1999 and 2001 had not moved beyond files at the Centre, with the Defence Ministry reportedly saying that the State Government would have to pay compensation for the taxes, as it was being done in other states like Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra where octroi was abolished. The Andhra Pradesh Government too, had done away with the practice in its limits way back in 1963, though the SCB continued with octroi and toll taxes, in spite of the widespread resentment among the public.

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