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Chandigarh admn okays municipal cess on power bills
The UT administration has approved the imposition of 10 paise per unit as municipal cess on electricity bills.
The UT administration has approved the imposition of 10 paise per unit as municipal cess on electricity bills.
In a letter sent to the municipal corporation (MC) on Thursday, the administration asked the civic body to issue the draft notification to seek objections from the public, before the cess was notified and imposed.
Confirming this, MC commissioner KK Yadav said MC will issue the draft notification on Monday. “The public will be given 30 days to submit objections. This feedback will be sent to UT for final notification,” he added.
PASSED BY HOUSE LAST YEAR
It was in July last year that the MC General House had approved imposition of the cess on power bills.
Reeling under major financial crunch, MC plans to earn ₹17 crore annually from the cess once it is notified. The move will affect over 2.25 lakh consumers of all categories, who can expect their power bills to be inflated by 10-12% depending on consumption. For instance, usage of 1,000 units will invite a cess of ₹100.
In Chandigarh, domestic consumers are sent electricity bills every two months, while bills for other categories of consumers are generated monthly. Of the 2.25 lakh consumers, 1.75 lakh are residential users.
At present, UT consumers are charged electricity duty, which is 9 paise per unit for residential consumers and 11 paise per unit for other categories.
MC officials said the money collected from the cess will be spent on improving the streetlight system in the city. An official said underground wiring of the electricity poles required improvements. The cess will be used for overall maintenance of over 40,000 streetlights, which will help make the system robust and glitch-free.
OTHER CESSES IN THE WORKS
Even as decks have been cleared for the municipal cess, MC is still awaiting UT’s green light to impose cow cess and malba cess.
If approved, residents will have to pay ₹500 as cow cess while buying four-wheelers and ₹200 for two-wheelers. Electricity consumers will pay 2 paise per unit as cow cess.
The cess will also be imposed on liquor bottles. The rate has been fixed at ₹5 per bottle for country liquor, and ₹10 and ₹5 per bottle on whisky and beer, respectively.
Meanwhile, the malba cess will be imposed as part of construction and demolition waste policy. As per MC resolution, the cess, once notified, will be charged at ₹16 per square feet, per storey, on any kind of renovation and reconstruction of residential, commercial, institutional or government building in Chandigarh.
For instance, if a building owner is doing renovation on 500 square feet of area, the total cess will be ₹8,000 (500 × 16).
The fee is ₹2 per square feet, per storey, for construction of new buildings, which is comparatively less since there is not much generation of demolition waste in new constructions.
The cess will be charged at the time of approval of building plan, which will not be provided without payment of the cess.
