AGSU members at the rally on Thursday. Picture by Eastern Projections

May 7: Students today joined the protest against the hike in property tax and trade licence fee in the city.

Hundreds of students under the banner of All Guwahati Students’ Union (AGSU) staged a protest demonstration and shouted slogans in front of the office of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation against its alleged arbitrary decision to increase the property tax and trade licence fee.

Despite resistance from security personnel, the students stormed into the room of GMC commissioner Manish Thakur and demanded an immediate rollback of the increase in property tax.

AGSU general secretary Simanta Thakuria said the hike in property tax and trade licence fee would have a crippling effect on the lives of residents, especially those with a small income.

He alleged that the corporation has enhanced the property tax 300 times without taking the people into confidence.

“If the GMC starts collecting property tax at the new rate, more than 50 per cent of the residents would have to leave the city because of the tax burden. The corporation has no moral right to increase the tax as it has miserably failed to deliver even the basic minimum service to its tax payers in the recent years,” Thakuria said.

According to him, the increase in the trade licence fee will affect the people more than the traders because the latter would enhance the prices of essential commodities to compensate the hike and thus pass on the burden to consumers.

Thakuria said there were several loopholes in the corporation’s revenue collection method, which must be plugged immediately instead of putting the additional burden on the citizens.

AGSU president Kusha Rongi said the students’ union also raised the issue of drinking water crisis, artificial floods and the dilapidated condition of the roads.

He said the union had made it clear to the commissioner that if the demands were not met immediately, the students would resort to a massive agitation from next month.

“The commissioner assured us that concession would be given to senior citizens in case of property tax, the trade licence fee would be reduced and the drinking water problem would be solved within the next three years,” Dipankar Das, a member of the AGSU, said.

“But the students were not convinced and demanded that the GMC must act instead of giving mere assurances. Today’s protest is a warning for more vigorous agitation in the coming days,” he added.