BHUBANESWAR: Defaulters of holding tax and all other licence fees under the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will be imposed a high interest penalty. The penal interest is pegged at 7 per cent more on the base interest rate charged by the State Bank of India (SBI). At the Corporation meeting on Wednesday, the BMC decided to come down heavily on the tax and licence fee defaulters by imposing a hefty fine. “If the SBI rate of interest is 9.5 per cent, we will add 7 per cent to it and the defaulter will have to pay 16.5 per cent as fine at the end of the year,” Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said. Municipal Commissioner Vishal Deb said that the penal interest provision would be a deterrent. However, the BMC has provided a window to the defaulters to clear their dues without the penalty. The last date for clearing tax and dues is April 30. The BMC has also offered a rebate of 5 per cent on payment of the holding tax for the entire fiscal 2012-13. The meeting also decided to triple the licence fees for mobile tower installations. The licence fee was raised to ` 50,000 from the current ` 17,500. “This has been done to make the licence fee at par with other cities across the country. We have compared the rates of the mobile tower licence fee of other cities and have settled at this rate,” said the Mayor. Presently there are 127 mobile towers in the city. Good News for rickshaw-pullers: The licence fee that the trolley rickshaw-pullers, cycle rickshaw-pullers have been paying has been abolished. Now they will not have to pay any licence fee. It has been decided that every ward will be provided with a minimum of two tube-wells. The number of tube-wells can go up to four depending on the requirement of the ward. Stand posts will also be set up wherever possible depending upon the pipeline.
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