Mangaluru: BJP members of Mangaluru City North & South Assembly Constituency staged a protest against poor administration of the Congress led city corporation in front of MCC. The protestors raised slogans and questioned about the bad roads and poor quality waste management service.
Addressing the protesters, corporator Premanand Shetty said, “The congress led City Corporation had in its vision documents, to mend the city roads and construct foot paths and drain facilities. But even after a year the promises made by them have not been fulfilled, instead, they have raised the self assessment tax to 150%, making people more burdened. Major roads and interior roads connecting to the city are in poor state which has caused a threat to two wheelers and pedestrians.”
“Due to groupism within the Congress party, for over one year, there was no mayor for the city. Later, when the first mayor was elected, the commissioner was transferred within a short span. The development of the district came to a standstill because of their groupism and internal fighting. The renovation work of the Town Hall also got delayed due to internal fights between the elected corporators”, he added.
He also said that before the MCC elections, senior Congress leader Janardhan Poojary had said that he would not allow the self assessment tax to be increased, but after the Congress came to power, they increased the SAT ignoring the advice of senior Congress leader.
He further spoke about the transfer of Hephsiba Rani which was said by Poojary, would not happen; “He could go to the higher ups in the party and retain her at MCC because she is a transparent officer. Transparent officers from the Revenue, Town planning and Health departments were also transferred.”
“Even though the corporation had an option to increase the advertisement hoardings tax to 300%, despite everyone’s demands, the corporation raided it by a mere 15% which is a huge loss incurred to the MCC revenue share that could be used for the development projects in the city”, he said.
Premanand demanded that the Mayor, the MLAs and the ministers of Mangaluru should fulfill the promises made to the people of Dakshina Kannada before elections. He also demanded for immediate construction of the footpaths and drains. “If the demands are not fulfilled, the BJP along with all the corporators and ward members will intensify their protest in coming days,” he warned.
Corporator Tilakraj said, “The tragedy is that we have a deaf chief minister in the state who is incapable of taking note of people’s problems, and a mute mayor. There are various problems in the Mangaluru City Corporation limits and when brought to notice of the Mayor, she is unable to solve them. She does not have the capacity to solve the problems in the city. Senior Congress leaders were blaming the BJP for increasing the self assessment tax earlier and Poojary has assured that if the Congress government comes to power, they will not increase the SAT”.
“How did the Congress forget its promise and increase the SAT? Even if a person pays only Rs 200 tax, he has to pay Rs 400 for the waste collection. The Congress government has given people a waste collection package of Rs 400 and has put people in trouble”, he added.
Corporator Roopa D Bangera, Ravishanker Mijar, Sudhir Shetty, Vedavyas Kumar, Dr Bharat Shetty, Satish Prabhu, Divakar and Bhaskar Chandra were also present.
