Sir,
This is with regard to the report titled “Open space tax riles residents” in SOM dated Sept. 7.
My husband and I grew up in Bengaluru, a garden city then, now a concrete jungle. We wished to settle down in Mysuru primarily for its greenery.
When we built our house seven years ago, we consciously left half the site for a garden, where we have now many plants and trees bearing fruits and flowers.
On one hand, the Government comes up with slogans of environment protection, initiatives for planting trees etc. On the other, they very irrationally seem to discourage these very ideas. People who have built bungalows, without leaving even an inch of soil around, may sleep peacefully while the few who have concern for the environment, have to worry about the strain on their pockets due to this new demand from MCC, or grieve bartering their precious garden to save the tax.
Are we going to be taxed for growing trees, for having greenery, for promoting eco-friendly living? Hope, the MCC authorities and the Minister concerned will look into this.
– Bhamati Nayak, Mysuru, 15.9.2021
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What can we expect from dimwit rule makers? in the name of garnering revenues to cover up their inefficiency, MUDA & MCC commissioners are following idiotic measures of collecting cleaning charges, from plot owners who have unconstructed area greater than 1000 sq feet. Little did they realise,as to how they can arrange cleaning in a private property who have grown plants. Are these dimwits planning to destroy plants and trees in the name of cleaning? Things can change only if many citizens protest against these draconic rules. Flood SOM and other papers protesting against cleaning charges for empty plots. Tomorrow Karnataka Govt. will usher in a new rule of clearing all trees in Karnataka and collect cleaning charges from citizens under cleaning cess.
Taxing Residents to Death: Open Space Tax
The Karnataka government is playing with the health of all life by taxing open space of our houses. Plant life today is rare in Mysuru,with open spaces built up into concrete monstrosities with multiple stories. Pollution is preventing us from breathing. Water is polluted. Sewage rivers in Mysuru is the stinking norm. MCC has lost civic sense and is acting as a livery implementing the retrograde tax orders issued thoughtlessly by a government which is bent upon ruining the health of nature itself. The government is causing the pandemics to be more aggressive by destroying the immune system with filthy air, water and soil. A tree transpires its own weight of water in a day. Thus a tree recharges the groundwaters. When our gardens recharge the wells, the level of water is maintained. We can then have drinking water for our families produced by our gardens. When houses have gardens, they give us health. Instead of taxing us to death, the government should give credit. There is a big precedent for this. It is not as if the governments have been heartless in the matter. When the Tatas at their Mithapur chemical plant saved some 50 percent of the fossil fuel way back in the fifties and sixties, and applied to the government for credit for such saving, the government duly recognized their feat and are giving them credit for fuel saved, not taxing them for saving so much mining and waste of precious forests! Rescind your order now and follow the ways of good governance that you yourself have set as precedent. Contribute to the mitigation of climate change. Celebrate Dasara in a non-invasive way.
The most corrupt MCC and MUDA have to fleece maximum money from the hapless public by any means so that their private accounts are slush with funds.
if the Government is not encouraging and promoting greenery in private houses why are they conducting flower show competitions at the time of Dasara and flower show at kuppana Park?