Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

VMC reduces D&O trade licence fee

VIJAYAWADA: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Saturday announced reduction of Dangerous and Offensive (D&O) trade licence fee and a few sops to the traders.

The announcement came just a few days before the proposed city bandh on March 16 in protest against the abnormal hike in D&O trade licence fee for which a call was given last Saturday by all opposition parties and trade bodies.

Municipal Commissioner G. Ravi Babu told a press conference that the corporation would issue new notices to the traders with revised tariffs shortly. Traders would have to pay the revised fee on or before March 20, he said.

Though the deadline for paying the D&O trade licence fee was March 1, many did not pay the same in view of the “confusion and resentment” over the hike. The confusion arose because user charges were included in the notices issued for D&O fee notices.

Responding to this, Mr. Ravi Babu said that the corporation would not collect user charges now. But it would levy penalty if D&O trade licence fee was paid after the deadline.

Categorisation

Mr. Ravi Babu said that earlier only zonal system was taken into consideration while preparing the D&O fee notices. But now, commercial activity too was taken into consideration before hiking the fee. Likewise, the VMC categorised the trades into high, medium and low commercial, and slashed the fee by 10 to 30 per cent. If the volume of business and profits earned by them (traders) were to be considered, “the hike in D&O fee was nominal.” Before revision of the hike, the VMC expected additional revenue of Rs. 65 lakh per annum on D&O trade licence fee. Now, it would not be more than Rs. 40 lakh, he said.

The Operation and Maintenance (O&M) expenditure for the corporation on sanitation was very high compared to the receipts. The VMC hardly received Rs. 2.25 crore on D&O fee, while the expenditure on salaries and purchases would touch Rs.46 crore per annum, he explained.

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