Ahead of the civic polls, chief minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday directed the officials concerned to prepare a proposal for the removal of property tax on flats below 500 square feet in Navi Mumbai. According to a Hindustan Times report, a resolution was passed by the general body meeting of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) in 2019 and sent to the state government, the urban development department did not act on it.
As residents owning houses less than 500 sq ft in Mumbai are exempted from paying property tax, the issue of providing the same relief to Navi Mumbai residents was raised by Belapur MLA Ganesh Naik in a meeting with the CM. The meeting was attended by MLA Mandatai Mhatre, CIDCO managing director Sanjay Mukherjee, principal secretary urban development-2, Sonia Sethi, MMRDA commissioner SVR Sriniwas and NMMC commissioner Rajesh Narvekar.Shinde said that the proposal should be submitted to absorb project-affected people working in NMMC and CIDCO on the lines of those Barvi dam-affected people, who were absorbed in the permanent jobs. The CM also told the officials concerned to implement the ‘Abhay Yojana’.
Meanwhile, after the Supreme Court's verdict on the political crisis in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde set his eyes on the upcoming civic polls. Ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election, Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena faction launched ‘Shakha Sampark Abhiyan’ in Mumbai with the aim of expanding the political party’s base to penetrate into the core voters of Uddhav Thackeray's Sena camp. The campaign will be led by Shrikant Shinde, Shiv Sena MP and son of CM Eknath Shinde.The campaign started from the Shiv Sena shakhas (branches) of Byculla assembly constituency, represented by MLA Yamini Jadhav from Shinde's camp. She is the wife of BMC's ex-councillor and Standing Committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav, who once had clout in Uddhav's camp.