Kolkata: Education, property tax bills cleared

Fillip to investment in higher education
The St. Xavier’s University Kolkata Bill 2016 was on Thursday passed in the West Bengal Assembly to meet the growing need for quality facilities and to encourage private investment in the state’s higher education system.

Speaking about the Bill, state’s higher education minister Partha Chatterjee said that the state government formulated a policy earlier considering the growing need for quality facilities in the state’s higher education system to cater to the growing number of students. The policy was also framed to encourage private investment in the state’s higher education system with an emphasis on the guiding principles of “expansion, inclusion and quality,” he said.

The sponsoring St Xavier’s College Kolkata Educational Trust earlier came up with a proposal to the state government for setting up a self financing private university by the name of the St Xavier’s University Kolkata at New Town having adequate financial resources.

This was done by the trust to provide instruction, teaching, training and research in various disciplines and specialised field of science, technology, law, management, social sciences, medicine, education, humanities, performing arts and several other areas.

Mr Chatterjee in his reply said that the feasibility of the proposal for setting up such a university was examined by the higher education department, which had subsequently proposed to incorporate the proposed university for the purpose.

He expressed hope the university by such a premiere educational trust would help improve the standard of quality education in the state. The state government, however, would have power to give directions to the University from time to time considering the interest of the students as well as in the public interest, the minister said.

House makes revenue collection easier
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill 2016 was passed in the West Bengal Assembly on Thursday to simplify the assessment and collection of property tax and make the entire process more transparent.

Municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim said it was necessary to amend the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, 1980 to empower the KMC to limit the increase and decrease in property tax under the unit area assessment (UAA) system by applying a cap on it. With this, self assessment of one’s property tax would be possible minus the ‘inspector raj’.

In calculating the interest payable, a fraction of a rupee in the amount of the bill on which the interest is to be calculated shall be rounded off to the nearest rupee, fifty paise being treated as rupee one, he said. KMC mayor Sovan Chatterjee who spoke on the bill during its discussion later informed that a set of regulations would be drafted within a month before a proposal would be sent to the government.

“All the processes will be finalised within March 31, 2017. The new mode of property tax calculation will be implemented from April 1. It will help people calculate their property tax. The bill was passed unanimously with voice vote in the House,” he said.