Business fraternity raise voice against levying of license fee

Lokmat News Network

Aurangabad, Feb 14:

The issue of collecting license fee from private establishments in the city has once again been in the news after the business fraternity came to know that the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is gearing up to collect license fee from the new financial year 2022-23. Meanwhile, the Zilla Vyapari Mahasangh (ZVM) hinted at launching an agitation in a democratic manner if the AMC fails to revise its decision.

The news of license fee collection is a hot topic in the city for the past four years. The AMC has decided to collect license fee along with the property tax during the last year, however, following the opposition from the business fraternity, the AMC shelved the implementation due to the pandemic situation. Now, the business fraternity joined hands to raise voices when they earnt that the AMC is gearing up to implement the license fee from the new financial year.

A meeting of businessmen was held under the presidentship of ZVM president Vijay Jaiswal at Aushadhi Bhavan. The resolution to register protest against the license fee collection was passed in the meeting. They also decided upon taking out Jan Andolan, if needed. They underlined that the AMC is already collecting commercial tax from them. Hence it would be unjust to collect a new fee from them. It will burden them, claimed the members in the meeting.

ZVM general secretary Shivshankar Swami, Jayant Deolankar, Jagannath Kale, Sardar Harisingh, Laxminarayan Rathi, Sanjay Kankariya, Dyaneshwar Kharde, Ajay Mantri, Ghulam Haqqani, Neeraj Patni, Kachru Welanjkar, Sunil Ajmera, Paithan tehsil president Dnyaneshwar Ugale, Yusuf Mukati, Nikhil Sarda, Sunil Deshmukh, Nandkishore Kale, Amit Jalnawala, Jagdish Erande, Dinesh Shirole and others were in the meeting.

Background of the license fee

The Maharashtra Government has ordered all the municipal corporations to collect license fee from private establishments in 2013. However, the AMC avoided implementing it in its jurisdiction. The AMC's general body (GB) meeting has approved the proposal in 2018. However, the Public Accounts Committee expressed its displeasure over the AMC's failure in implementing the fee in 2021. Hence the AMC assured the committee of collecting the fee from April 1, 2021, but due to the pandemic situation, the task of levying was postponed. The AMC hope's of collecting a revenue of Rs 8 crore through the license fee every year, it is learnt.