‘We’ll Take Action on Illegal Flex Hoardings & Evict Street Vendors Soon’- MCC Commissioner
Mangaluru: Addressing the media persons during a press meet held at the MCC Meeting Hall, on Wednesday 30 September Mayor Diwakar Pandeshwar said, “As mentioned earlier the last date to pay property tax was 30 September 2020, now we have extended the payment time until 31 October 2020, without any penalty. This decision was taken in the wake of Covid-19 lockdown/pandemic since people experienced hardships. If people fail to pay property tax by 31 October, then they will have to pay the penalty/fine of 2% of the payment amount, after 1 November” 
Also addressing the media, MCC Commissioner Akshy Sridhar said, “Starting 2 October 2020, Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) will initiate a trial of its newly developed trade license software. With the council of the civic body approving the same, the trial that could last two to three weeks will help MCC sort out glitches in the online rollout of issuing trade licenses. Training will be imparted to both officials and applicants for trade licence on how to use the software. The software will help people submit applications for a fresh trade license, renew their existing trade license, cancel it, upload documents and photos of the trade and pay the trade license fee online. Officials will use the software to endorse the license, print it and even let the applicants know of the status of their application online. Each of the trade licenses will be geo-tagged to prevent its misuse or duplication”.
“State-owned Keonics Ltd that has developed the software for MCC will provide mobile app for license applicants, officials/health inspectors of MCC, portal monitoring management system along with hardware application. Roll out of this software with a little tweaking will enable MCC to provide people with more online payment options including their water bills, which they did manually in banks or at Mangalore One. The process of enabling people to pay their property tax online with a supporting property tax calculator too is in the final stages of implementation. We expect to roll out the process from 1 December 2020, and the servers for the purpose are being set up” added Commissioner.
He further said, “We will take stringent action on those installing illegal flex hoardings without a licence. We have already removed such banners/hoardings a few days ago, and such a drive will continue on a regular basis. Action will also be taken on the selling and usage of plastic carry bags which has been banned in the MCC limits a long ago, but people are violating the ban. Huge fines will be imposed above Rs 1500 and more, and cases will be filed against them if anyone is found selling or using plastic carry bags. We have given a week’s time to Illegal street vendors occupying the footpaths and other places and doing their business, and after that, we will evict them by force”.
Speaking on Waste segregation, Akshy Sridhar said, “Waste Segregation will be uniformly implemented in all 60-wards of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) from 2 October 2020. As a trial run to ascertain the pitfalls in five wards, the civic body collected wet waste from residential and commercial complexes on a daily basis and dry waste every Friday. MCC will give a maximum grace period of 10-days after which fines as approved in the civic body’s bylaws, will be levied. The fine ranges from Rs 1,500 for not segregating household waste and for dumping construction debris in open spaces, the fine will be Rs 25,000. MCC is also considering setting up CCTV surveillance in open spaces that have become debris dump ground. Health inspectors and environmental engineers will keep tabs on waste segregation”.
“These stringent steps are very much necessary with the National Green Tribunal monitoring the situation. The NGT has also directed the chief secretary to explain in person the steps that the state has taken to comply with Solid Waste Management Act, 2016, an act that even the union government is serious about. MCC has already directed all bulk generators of waste to set up their own processing plants or make arrangements for its scientific disposal. Households, hotels, hostels, educational institutions, bars and restaurants, marriage halls, catering firms, businesses who convert wet waste into compost will get a rebate of 50% in solid waste management cess they pay as part of the property tax. MCC will provide forms for this purpose from 2 October. Health inspectors will verify compost arrangements in households, institutions to facilitate them claim the rebate”, added Akshy Sridhar.
About High Court recently coming down on MCC for its handling of solid waste in wake of the heap of waste at its landfill site at Pacchanady coming crashing down in households and farmland in 2019, Sridhar said that the MCC will comply with all directives in the order once it gets a copy of the same. “The High Court had frowned on the state government remains a mute spectator to around 200 tonnes of waste being illegally dumped daily at Pacchanady. The Pacchanady dump yard consists of six lakh tons of garbage which is spread across 25 acres, in which 13.5 acre is private land which was affected during the 2019 garbage slide. We have submitted a report to the government regarding disposal of waste through bio-mining and bio-remedies, and are waiting for final orders”, said Sridhar.
When a reporter asked about the fate of Central Market, the Commissioner said, “As of now only traders with genuine documents and trade licences in their name will be permitted to carry on their business in the Market. MCC has noted that in the past many traders were carrying on their businesses in someone else’s name, which we have stopped now. As mentioned earlier, the present Central Market is not safe and too congested during the pandemic, so when the construction of the state-of-the-art market starts, we will make a temporary arrangement for these traders”.
Dr Santhosh Kumar, the MCC Deputy Commissioner (Administration) was also present on the dais, while Binoy, MCC Revenue Officer, Madhu -the MCC Environmental Engineer, were among other MCC officials present during the press meet.
The whole road in front of the corporation swimming pool is taken over by food vendors who have scant botheration about masks, physical distancing or hand hygiene.