Maha to scrap octroi this year, expand ambit of LBT: Chavan

Octroi would be scrapped from Mumbai and other municipal corporations this year and more civic bodies will be brought under the ambit of Local Body Tax (LBT), Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said today.
"Levy of Octroi would be scrapped in Mumbai and rest of the corporations like Thane, Pune, Nagpur, Pimpri-Chinchwad this year and the local body tax (LBT) would be introduced. At present, LBT is levied in 20 local bodies," Chavan told the Legislative Assembly today.
Octroi is a local tax collected on various articles brought into a district for consumption.
Maharashtra is the only Indian state where octroi is levied, besides one in Ethiopia, Chavan said while replying to a debate on the motion of thanks to Governor for his address to the joint sitting of both houses of the State legislature.

Chavan told the House that projects worth Rs 5,000 crore, including ambitious ones like Mono Rail, Metro Rail, and Eastern Express Freeway, under Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), would be inaugurated this year and new projects worth Rs 35,000 crore would be rolled out.
"Trials for Mono Rail are already underway", he said.

Chavan said the 22-km Mumbai Trans Harbour Link project, worth Rs 9,630 crore, is also on the track.
The chief minister said the State was very much on the growth trajectory though it was grappling with a host of challenges including severe drought, malnutrition, growing urbanisation, regional imbalance and economic slowdown.

"We continue to remain the number one state in terms of industrial investment and per capita income," he said, adding that the focus of the Democratic Front government under him was on inclusive growth.
"The Congress-NCP government is in power for last 14 years. People tried a different arrangement between 1995-99, however, the ideology was decisively rejected in 1999 and subsequent elections", he said referring to the brief Shiv Sena-BJP rule.