House passes two bills on last day
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, March 25 2011:
Two government bills, the Salaries and Allowances of Members of the Legislative Assembly (Manipur) 19th Amendment Bill 2011 and Validation Bill 2011 and the Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill 2011 were passed in the House of the Assembly on the last day of its budget session.
Both the bills were introduced by Chief Minister, O Ibobi Singh in the afternoon session of the House.
The first bill, the Salaries and Allowances of Members of the Legislative Assembly (Manipur) 19th Amendment and Validation Bill 2011, seeks waiving off loan amounts upto ' 10 lakh availed by a legislator if he happens to expire before recovery of the loan.
Giving his observation when the bill was moved for passing by the House, O Joy of MPP asserted that except for a few, most of the former legislators are well to do ones.
Considering for those living with hardships, the bill be passed and enforced as Act but there is the need for relooking into the word "public interest" while waiving loans of legislators.
"It will be a right step to replace the word "public interest" by another word as unconditional waiving loan will not be in public interest," he commented.
Sharing his comment on the Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill 2011 which include imposition of a new tax, "Green Tax", O Joy said that even though government targets to collect ' 12 crore a year by imposing the new tax, the target cannot be achieved if the mode of collection of taxes are not rectified.
Replying to the observations made by the opposition members, Chief Minister compared the mode of collection of motor-vehicles taxes in Tripura and Manipur and said Tripura government can collect above ' 20 crore as vehicle tax in a year whereas state could collect only ' 4 crore during the same period.
On investigation, it was revealed that Manipur has a higher number of two-wheelers while Tripura has more four-wheelers and other commercial vehicles.
The number of two-wheelers in Manipur is sharply increasing, the CM said adding that there was an increase of 40,000 in 2011 from the previous year.
The number of vehicles registered in 2010 was ' 1,41,873, he added.
Government is considering to hike taxes imposed on non-commercial vehicles and imposing taxes as low as possible on commercial vehicles, the CM said.
With regard to the new tax "Green Tax", Ibobi said that in a city like Singapore, there is restriction on use of vehicles which is more than 10 years old but in Manipur there is no time limit.
The Green Tax is to be imposed for those vehicles which have been in use for more than 15 years.
The tax levied from these vehicles will be used in plantation of trees to check pollution, he said.
Clarifying on the Salaries and Allowances of Members of the Legislative Assembly (Manipur) 19th Amendment Bill 2011, CM said that once the bill is passed and becomes an Act, the controversy of the matter of waiving loans availed by legislators before their death will be solved for all time.
After the CM clarified on the two bills, Speaker I Hemochandra proposed for passing the bills which the House passed by voice votes.
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