Pal Pariawala, Mumbai Uncensored, 4th July 2021:
The BMC recently announced a new SOP for the collection of fees from restaurants, housing societies and retailers. This move was largely criticized by the citizens and was called unjust in nature. Moreover, Hotelier Guruprasad Shetty went on to call it illegal since BMC already covers Fire Tax in the Property Bill issued to societies. He said, “It may be illegal to charge twice for the same service. Common citizens are already in bad shape due to lockdown as BMC has not given waiver in property tax, license fees etc.” It is indeed surprising that MCGM is planning to impose fees without following any due procedure. Congress corporator Ravi Raja who sits as the opposition leader in BMC also objected by saying that the residents must not be penalized since the negligence was from the BMC’s part.
The BMC has failed to recover fees since 2014, and it would be a huge burden on the common man to pay it all together. Ramesh Pawar, the joint municipal commissioner had brought up the issue of non-collection of fire service fees last year and advised an enquiry for the same but was ignored.
After several objections, Shiv Sena talked about this issue at their standing committee meeting on Wednesday, 30 June 2021. Why did the BMC wake up so late? Now these charges will have to be paid by residents,” said a sena leader. In this meeting, Sena corporator Vishakha Raut, called for adjournment motion which was accepted by all the parties right away. After talks, the committee directed BMC to put a stay on fire service fees’ recovery.
