‘Pushing people to wall’: NC, PDP decry proposed property tax in J&K

Srinagar, Oct 10: The two main regional political parties of J&K have criticised the Centre’s proposed move to impose property tax in the union territory.

While National Conference called the tax “overburdening” the people in a crisis, PDP said it “brought back memories of despotic rule”.

NC discussed the issue in a meeting chaired by party General Secretary Ali Sagar.

Expressing concern over the imposition of property tax in J&K, the NC leaders said that amidst depressing economic activity and soaring unemployment, the GOI has amended two municipal laws of J&K and given power to the local administration to levy and collect property tax. 

“Far from doling out fiscal help and other supportive measures, the government, the leaders said, wants to suck the life and blood of people.  The leaders said the measure will push the people to the wall,” read the NC statement.

Terming the move as grave injustice, the leaders said the imposition of the property tax, at a time when the economy is reeling under slowdown, will overburden people, who are struggling to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, PDP in its statement compared the proposed property tax to the “exploitative taxation regime during the monarchical rule”.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senior leader & former legislator Mohammad Khurshed Alam in the statement said that “dictatorial policies are being implemented in J&K at the behest of communal elements to cripple our economy and enforce asset devaluation.”

“The property tax order smacks of the despotic and anarchic rule the people of this land have witnessed for hundreds of years when we were crushed under the heavy burden of taxation. It is nothing but the revival of that dark, dreadful and disastrous era to which Kashmir’s blood-soaked history is synonymous,” Alam said.

Lamenting the “insensitive and step-motherly” treatment meted out to Kashmiris especially post August 5, Alam said that the “wounds inflicted by the unconstitutional, illegal and unnatural abrogation of Article 370 are still fresh and yet each day new methods are invented to push the people towards the corner.”

“On one side government is launching PR campaigns like Back to village programs and promising slogans like Vikas etc to justify abrogation and on the other promising 3 lakh houses to homeless people under new housing policy, issuing citizenship and jobs to outsiders and attacking locals by taxing, raids and systemic disempowerment,” he said.

“Is this the roadmap of Naya Kashmir which the government epitomized in the parliament on August 5, 2019? Alam questioned.