Rollback ‘archaic, arbitrary’ property tax in JK: Apni Party’s Rafi Mir

SRINAGAR, October 14: Apni Party general secretary Rafi Ahmad Mir on Wednesday strongly opposed the imposition of property tax in Jammu and Kashmir terming it arbitrary and dictatorial in nature.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a joining ceremony at Party office at The Bund in Lal Chowk Srinagar, Mir remarked that J&K is already reeling under a severe economic depression and levying property tax amid such a scenario is a deliberate attempt to bully its residents.“Almost every sphere of public life has been hit hard in J&K during the last three decades of conflict. Now last year’s unprecedented political developments coupled with the current COVID pandemic have crumbled their economic conditions. I don’t see a proper application of mind behind this arbitrary taxation decision which is being thrust upon the people of J&K,” he opined.
Mir said that instead of addressing the economic slowdown, soaring unemployment rate and the lack of avenues for a dignified livelihood for the people of J&K, it is highly unfortunate that the union government seems adding insult to the injury by frequently coming up with random and tyrannical moves to inflict more sufferings on the people.“Lakhs of people have lost their jobs since August last year; small as well as big businesses have crumbled, and industrial sector is shut and so are the agricultural and horticultural sectors in J&K. Now levying property taxes from people means you want to bankrupt the whole population,” Mir observed.
He termed this decision anti-people and a grave injustice and demanded its immediate rollback by the union government. “All such revenue generation measures must be left to a democratically elected government in J&K. Such hasty decisions are otherwise bound to create further alienation among people and it may compel all of us to come to streets to agitate this matter,” Mir added.
Meanwhile, the prominent political activists of Budgam district who joined Apni Party along with their workers today included Peoples Conference District President Budgam Firdous Ahmad Farash and Peoples Conference head Constituency Chadoora Javid Ahmad Wani.