Proposal worth Rs27 crore passed for building houses for poorer sections .
The political wing of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation may not risk vexing traders of the city by increasing property tax on commercial establishments in the election year. The standing committee's budget will be presented on Thursday.
The municipal commissioner had proposed to increase property tax rates for commercial establishments from Rs22 per square meter to Rs26 per square meter. The commissioner's move was aimed at adding Rs50 crore to the civic body's coffer.
However, the ruling party in AMC, the BJP, may not go through with it as elections are to be held in October. Moreover, the standing committee is not expected to make major additions to the draft budget presented by the municipal commissioner.
In one more populist decision, the standing committee of AMC passed a proposal of building around 960 houses for sweepers at a cost of Rs27.53 crore.
The contract has been awarded to RJP Infrastructure Ltd at 1.85% higher rates than estimates prepared by the civic body. The contractor needs to complete the project within 24 months. It should be noted that the civic body has allotted plots for building 800 houses in various areas of the city. However, it is still hunting for a plot for the remaining 160 houses.
The civic body will build 160 houses on Nikol road of east zone, while 512 houses will be built on two plots of south zone and 128 in Odhav ward of east zone.
According to the original plan of building 2000 houses for economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society, the civic body had already awarded contracts for building 1024 houses.
Earlier the EWS houses were to be built using RCC monolithic construction technology, but in the present case Mascon technology will be used as suggested by the project monitoring committee of AMC. The Mascon aluminum sets cost around Rs1.70 crore per four units and cannot be reused in case there is change in design.
The project would be funded from corporation budget as well as beneficiary fund. AMC has made a provision of Rs4.5 crore for the project in the budget of financial year 2009-10.
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