North Corporation chairman standing committee Tilak Raj Kataria, while finalising the budget for financial year 2018-19 in a special meeting on Wednesday, announced that new taxes such as betterment and professional taxes proposed by commissioner Madhup Vyas had been scrapped.

Last year on 5 December, the commissioner had proposed to levy a uniform rate of property tax, instead of different slabs for different categories. In his budget proposals for 2018-19, the commissioner had suggested a flat 15 per cent rate of tax for residential properties and 20 per cent for commercial, including industrial.

Kataria said, “keeping in mind the interest of people, all new proposed taxes like betterment and professional taxes have been scrapped. Proposed increase in property tax has also been scrapped.”
The budget estimate proposed total revenue of Rs 8,562.28 crore and total expenditure of 8,562.13 crore, for 2018-19. The revised estimate for 2017-18 total revenue is 5,765.96 crore and expenditure is 5,765.66 crore.

The chairman said that “Deendayal Antyodya Rasoi Yojna”will be started to provide meals at Rs 10 per head in all wards. This has been started on pilot basis in Ward 63. Also women entrepreneurs will be encouraged under Start Up India scheme of Union Government. They will be given rebate of two per cent in property tax and license fees.

The chairman said that under ‘Navodaya Bazars’ scheme, vendors of weekly markets would be registered so that they could get loans easily. All temporary sanitation workers would be regularised, he mentioned further.

He claimed that the corporation would contribute in making Delhi slum-free by 2022 through in situ projects, adding that Delhi would be made beggar-free by developing ashrams for them after roping in services of NGOs.

Kataria observed that solid waste management was a big challenge. He recalled that 4000 MT garbage was generated daily in North Delhi and was likely to increase to 7500 MT by 2021.

He felt about 500 acre land was needed to process that trash.North Corporation spent Rs 304 lakh in the last financial year in procurement of resources for the purpose of sanitation, he said while In the current financial year Rs 307 lakh had been spent so far. He informed that 3330 wheel barrows were procured last year for Rs 142 lakh to clear garbage.