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Gzb administration restricts timings of vegetable and grocery shops; corporation defers hike in property-tax
The Ghaziabad district administration Friday directed that starting April 25, all fruit and vegetable shops will open only up to 2pm, while the grocery and kirana
The Ghaziabad district administration Friday directed that starting April 25, all fruit and vegetable shops will open only up to 2pm, while the grocery and kirana shops will operate only up to 4pm daily.
District magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said the timings were curtailed for stricter enforcement of lockdown conditions.The Ghaziabad district is among a list of 19 districts in Uttar Pradesh which have 10 or more cases.
“The directions have been given in order to restrict movement of the public during the lockdown. If shop timings are restricted, we expect that it would also restrict the movement of people. Any selling of fruit or vegetables in residential localities will be allowed only up to 2pm. The grocery shops will also not open after 4pm,” Shiv Prakash Shukl, city magistrate, said.
Till Friday, such shops were allowed to open from 6am to 9pm. Two days ago, the administration also restricted the timing of shops at Old Sabzi Mandi (near Navyug Market) till 2pm in order to avoid any crowding.
On Monday, the district magistrate had also given directions prohibiting the movement of people between Ghaziabad and Delhi. The directions came after the health department said that at least six positive cases of Covid-19 resulted after the patients had travelled to Delhi.
According to officials the Ghaziabad district, at present, there are 15 hot spots in the district which are completely barricaded and no movement of public is allowed except of those involved in essential supplies, sanitisation and home delivery of food, etc.
Apart from the hot spots, the district also has 25 epicentre areas which have been temporarily sealed. The epicentre areas are created if Covid-19 cases emerge within a 5km radius of a hot spot area.
The Ghaziabad municipal corporation on Friday also decided to defer a hike of 10% in property tax this year in view of the Covid-19 situation.
“The decision has been taken to defer the stipulated hike and the proposal will be formally placed before the corporation board in the next board meeting. We did not want to burden ordinary citizens,” Dinesh Chandra, municipal commissioner, said.
According to officials, there are about 3.53 lakh houses which pay property tax which includes 10% house tax, 10% water tax and 4% sewer and drainage tax. The tax is calculated on the basis of annual rental value of a property.
“Last financial year (2019-20), we received about ₹127 crore as property tax. There was a proposal of 10% on annual rental value which has now been put on hold. We are now encouraging people to pay the property tax online. We are also thinking of making arrangements for manual collection of tax,” Sanjeev Kumar Sinha, corporation’s chief tax assessment officer, said.
A tax payer gets a rebate of 20% if the tax payment is made by August 31; 15% in case tax is paid in September; 10% in case the payment is made in October or November and 5% if paid in December or January.
