Mamata's reward to Gurung for helping her to become Chief Minister

Hill dues in bills, taxes to be waived - Morcha welcomes Mamata gesture to write off Rs 100 crore

VIVEK CHHETRI

Darjeeling, Oct. 30: The state government has accepted the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s demand to write off electricity dues and outstanding taxes to the tune of over Rs 100 crore that had accumulated over the past three years because of the party’s “non-cooperation movement” in the Darjeeling hills against the administration. The waiver, coming at a time the state is reeling from a severe financial crunch, is being seen as an attempt by the Mamata Banerjee government to turn into a goodwill gesture an otherwise arduous task of collecting dues that had accrued because of a boycott call by the Morcha, whose writ runs large in the hills. The government would also have risked antagonising the Morcha if attempts were made to collect the dues at a time the state and the party have mended bridges with the formation of an administrative arrangements for the hills and the announcement of several development projects, observers said. Darjeeling district magistrate Saumitra Mohan said his office had received a circular from the government announcing the waiver. “All taxes have been exempted by the state government. Hill residents will, however, have to pay their taxes and bills from August 2011.” After the deal to form the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration was signed in July, the Morcha had called off the non-cooperation movement and said the hill people would start paying taxes and bills from August this year. Morcha chief Bimal Gurung had, however, requested the government to waive all dues accrued till August. Several people have started paying and clearing the dues accumulated since August. Since April 2008, the hill people had not paid power and phone bills and land and transport taxes to demand a separate Gorkhaland state. The observers said the waiver came as a relief for the Morcha as well. “There was no way the Morcha could have asked the hill people to pay the dues as the party had only asked them to stop paying bills and taxes,” an observer said. The Morcha leadership welcomed the government’s decision. “We had been demanding that outstanding dues be waived. We welcome the decision,” said Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri. Sources said the waiver would cost the state exchequer more than Rs 100 crore. They said unpaid electricity bills amounted to Rs 72 crore while the outstanding sales tax came to around Rs 25 crore. Other outstanding dues such as transport and land taxes add up to Rs 5 crore. Mohan said the state could not write off telephone bills as the department was overseen by the Centre. “The telephone department is under the Centre and we have not received any instructions from Delhi yet,” he said. Sources said the telephone dues would not be as high as the outstanding power bills. “This is largely because one can’t refuse to pay for cellphone recharge vouchers. Bills of private companies providing services also had to be paid. BSNL had cut connection to all landlines barring those in government offices two years ago,” a telephone department official said.