Nothing short of complete withdrawal of property tax order acceptable to people of J&K, says NC leader

Jammu, Feb 26 (PTI) Nothing short of a complete rollback of the order to impose property tax would be acceptable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, National Conference leader Ajay Kumar Sadhotra said on Sunday.

The Union Territory administration on Tuesday ordered the imposition of property tax in municipal areas from April 1. The tax rates will be five per cent of taxable annual value for residential properties and six per cent for commercial properties, it stated.

Cautioning the Centre and the Lt Governor-led administration against taking policy decisions, Sadhotra said it is the domain of democratically elected dispensations.

“Denying democracy to people is a hallmark of the BJP model of governance. This might have worked for some time but cannot work all the time, keeping in view the country’s democratic ethos,” the former minister said.

He said his party will fight the “anti-people” measures democratically, given its track record of fighting for the just cause of all segments in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Politically naive and insensitive BJP should learn lessons from good governance and work for public welfare,” he said.

The National Conference leader also wondered over the parallels being drawn by the government between Jammu and Kashmir and India’s other states in a bid to justify its “anti-people, illogical and authoritarian” decision.

“The desperate attempts of launching a propaganda campaign through the media and all its administrative apparatus is a candid admission by the government that it is on the defensive in the wake of stiff resistance from people to its unwarranted and provocative decisions…,” he said.

The government cannot compare Jammu and Kashmir with other states in respect of the civic facilities, he added.

“Instead of upgrading these facilities, the people in the urban and semi-urban areas are being punished by way of paying taxes,” Sadhotra said.

Another former minister, Dogra Swabhiman Sangathan Party chief Lal Singh said the imposition of property tax is like rubbing salt on people’s wounds as they are going through a critical situation of “unemployment and poverty”.

“The government, instead of giving relief to the people, is playing into the hands of bureaucrats and ignoring the ground reality,” he alleged.

Singh also condemned Sunday’s killing of a Kashmiri Pandit in the Valley and said the frequency of such incidents exposes the government’s hollow claims about the return of normality.