The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday said it plans to move four resolutions to provide relief to traders from sealing drives and parking/conversion charges during the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD)’s budget session beginning Tuesday.
Durgesh Pathak, AAP’s MCD in charge, said the corporation exploited traders over the 15 years the BJP controlled it. “Our councillor Praveen Kumar will put up a resolution to mandate the MCD advocates to favour traders in sealing related matters. The sealing drives in local shopping centers were taken up by the committee of the Supreme Court. It was unfortunate that MCD’s lawyers were arguing against the traders…Our first resolution states that MCD would legally argue in favour of opening the sealed shops.”
Pathak said councillor Ravinder Bharadwaj will table the second resolution for stopping further notices in the name of parking/conversion charges. “The House will order the municipal commissioner through this resolution to stop issuance of any further notices.”
He said another councillor Prem Chauhan will put up a resolution backing no further action in cases where these notices have been issued. Pathak said that the leader of the House Mukesh Goyal will table a resolution that MCD has no right to issue such notices in the local shopping centers. “Unless MCD forms a holistic policy on this matter, no action should be taken. All these four resolutions will help the trader community.”
Goyal said in the run-up to the municipal elections this year, AAP promised relief from sealing, parking, and conversion charges. “If BJP councillors wish to work in favour of traders, they should help us to pass these resolutions unanimously.”
There was no immediate reaction from BJP.
Special officer Ashwini Kumar cleared the schedule of taxes for the next financial year on February 14. MCD House needs to clear the rest of the budget before March 31.
On March 19, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced his government is considering providing relief to traders over the conversion, parking charges, and sealing after meeting a delegation of market associations of local shopping centres.
Parking and conversion charges are levied for the commercial use of properties originally earmarked for residential use.
A Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee, which carried out sealing drives prompted by a violation of rules on payment of parking and conversion charges, was reinitiated in December 2017.
