Bill for hiking local cess introduced in TN Assembly

Chennai, Mar 28 (UNI) Tamil Nadu Local Administration Minister M K Stalin today introduced in the State Assembly, a Bill providing for hiking local cess and local levy surcharge as per the recommendations of the Second State Finance Commission (SSFC).

As per Section 167 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act, 1994, local cess was levied at the rate of Rs one on every rupee of land revenue payable to government.

Similarly, every panchayat union council could levy local cess surcharge which should not be less than Rs five and more than Rs ten on every rupee of land revenue.

The SSFC had recommended for the enhancement of the rate of local cess from Re one to Rs two and the minimum amount of local cess surcharge from Rs five to Rs seven.

Mr Stalin also introduced another Bill to amend the Tamil Panchayats Act which provided for tabling a comprehensive annual report on the 'State of the panchayats in Tamil Nadu' as a whole, before the State Assembly every year.

At present, annual reports about the district panchayats alone were being tabled in the Assembly which do not give an overall view of the release of funds and functioning of all three tiers of the panchayats.

The government has decided to lay a comprehensive report instead of tabling reports of individual district panchayats.

Meanwhile, the House also passed the Tamil Nadu Appropriation (Vote on Account) Bill, which provides for withdrawal of funds by the State Government for part of the forthcoming financial year 2008-09.

The Bill was necessitated due to the suspension of the Budget Session for two days on March 24 and 25 to facilitate the MLAs and Ministers to visit the rain-affected areas.

UNI GV GM LPB AS1912