Taxpayers association opposes collection of garbage user charge

Vijayawada (NTR District): The Taxpayers Association condemned the municipal staff threatening people of cancelling their ration cards, stopping pension and other welfare schemes, imposition of penalties and refuse to lift garbage if the citizens did not pay the user charge.

The association, which met here on Tuesday, took strong exception to the collection of user charge to lift garbage from people's houses, terming it as illegal.

Association president V Sambi Reddy and secretary MV Anjaneyulu addressing the media said that the corporation officials are indulging in devious ways to collect user charges without following any procedure. 'The officials are not serving demand notices but distributing pamphlets to collect user charge.

Moreover, they are not collecting user charge from the municipal corporation counters but through the ward secretariat volunteers without issuing any receipts. Since this system has no accountability, most of the citizens in various cities across the state are refusing to pay the user charges,' they said

The taxpayers association argued that as per the enactment, the taxes or charges collected should be used for that particular purpose only. Also, the collected amount should be spent in that particular city or town. However, the State government is taking away the user charges for garbage collection to deposit in the Clean Andhra Pradesh scheme, which is against the established rule of law.

The Association demanded immediate halt to the collection of user charges from the citizens and the garbage collection should be undertaken with the corporation funds.