Unhappy over Pernem Municipal Council’s (PMC) decision to hike municipal tax by 50 percent, a group of merchants from Pernem town met Tourism Minister and Pernem MLA Manohar (Babu) Azgaonkar at the government rest house in Pernem and insisted that they be taken into confidence before implementing any such decision.
PERNEM
Those present at the meeting also included PMC Chairperson Usha Nagvekar, Vice-Chairperson Deepak Mandrekar, councillors Shraddha Mashelkar, Suvidha Mashelkar, Swati Kambli, Gajanan Sawal Dessai, Siddhesh Pednekar, Prashant Gadekar, former PMC vice-chairperson Dr Vasudev Deshprabhu and PMC Chief Officer Gautami Parmekar.
During the meeting, Azgaonkar advised the PMC to reconsider its decision by decreasing the tax.
Seeking to explain PMC’s decision, Nagvekar explained that the PMC had been collecting Rs 100 as municipal tax from the merchants since the last 28 years and the tax had never been increased.
“The PMC will be in a difficult financial situation if the tax is not hiked now. I will take all merchants into confidence before moving forward with the decision,” she added.
