No new taxes in AMC's Rs6,550 cr draft budget

Ahmedabad civic chief Mukesh Kumar presented on Friday the draft budget worth Rs 6,500 crore for the 2018-19 fiscal. No increase in taxes has been introduced while the main focus has been on seamless traffic management.

Briefing media persons on his draft budget, Kumar said the thrust would be on a clean and secure Ahmedabad.

"There will be no rise in civic taxes this year. Our main aim is to provide better amenities such as good roads, drainage lines and drinking water supply; 46 per cent allocation will be made for this purpose from the total budget," Kumar said.

"We are working on a new parking policy called on-street parking policy. It will have the pay and park facility. A multi-storeyed parking space has been proposed along the SG Highway," the commissioner noted.

Jantri may return

While the tax burden would remain unchanged, the Jantri-based tax relief has been recalled this year. Jantri is the government document that specifies the market price of land and buildings and the stamp duty is decided on the basis of the Jantri rates.

The city was getting a tax benefit of 50 per cent. If this is recalled, this will add a burden of Rs67 crore on taxpayers from the new west zone. The introduction of Jantri rate had triggered protests in the past. The new west zone had highly benefited from this 50 per cent relief.

Heritage park at Riverfront

Kumar has introduced a heritage theme-based miniature park at the riverfront, on the lines of the one in Agartala, Tripura. The park will exhibit miniature versions of city's monuments.

Three-level flyovers

Two three-level flyovers have been announced by Kumar to ease the traffic burden on city roads. The flyovers will come up at Nehrunagar and Paldi. The first level of the bridge will be a straight traffic road along with a foot-overbridge and underpass. The second layer will have a round development of four arms and the third layer will have a flyover for straight traffic from the other side.