Kota students protest new sanitation tax
Civic body wants each student to pay ₹1,000 each year for sanitation, they already pay GST
in Kota, the country’s coaching hub, took to the streets on Wednesday afternoon to protest against the imposition of sanitation tax by Kota Municipal Corporation.
On Monday, the corporation’s revenue committee passed a proposal to impose a sanitation tax of ₹1,000 for each student in coaching institutes and other private educational institutes having strength of 250 or more students.
Kota is home to more than 50 large coaching institutes with more than 1.60 lakh students and more than 500 private schools.
Objecting to the proposal, Leader of Opposition in the corporation Anil Suwalka and other opposition leaders staged a protest along with more than 300 students holing placards and also held a “symbolic begging” drive.
“The move to impose sanitation tax on students defies logic,” said Suwalka.
“This will have a direct impact on their fee structure as students are already paying GST and service tax,” he said. “There are more than 500 restaurants and dhabas in Kota that are mainly responsible for the waste generation so any new taxes should be imposed on them. The coaching institutes are already paying urban development tax,” he said.
Wednesday’s protest was to highlight that students, most of whom have come from other cities, have limited budget and cannot afford to pay more taxes, Suwalka said.
Corporation officials say that coaching institutes have mushroomed in residential areas making it difficult for the civic body employees to carry out the sanitation work with the existing resources.
Kota ranked 341 in the 2017 Swachh Survekshan (sanitation rankings) carried out across the country in May.
Students have often taken part in the campaign to clean the city.
Earlier this year, a student, who had cracked the IIT JEE Advanced, cleaned up a waste dump with the help of sanitation workers and later painted the wall with colourful graffiti make the place beautiful.
JAIPUR/KOTA:Students