Leader of the Opposition Himmat Singh Patel said today that municipal commissioner B K Sinha started drives against illegal constructions which were stopped either on political pressures or on the pretext of forming a uniform policy. He said that in Narol, a 15-km stretch was illegal, while the BJP had deserved nearly three lakh sq mtrs of land in Naranpura for builders. Besides, clearing of reserved plots had also been done to please the builders, he alleged.

Patel alleged the BJP had no clear policy on illegal structures; it was once talking about impact fees, then about imposing fine for covering the gallery and even not allowing the commissioner to act as per the law. He said that on one hand when the State Government in consultation with the corporation was thinking of abolishing octroi, the BJP in the corporation had increased the rates which were approved by the Government.

The Congress leader deplored Friday's incident inside the civic premises and the BJP had now intensified security, hampering routine work in the corporation. He said the BJP should make an assurance that there would be no attacks by the corporators or party workers.

Referring to the property tax issue, he said the same had been pending with the Government for long as the BJP had failed to speed up its implementation. As a result, there was no four-year evaluation in the eastern and southern zones and the AMC had been losing revenue.

Congress corporator Surendra Baxi said the AMC was losing about Rs 9 crore a year in each ward in the absence of this evaluation in the remaining three wards. Each register had over 280 entries, but when the four year assessment began, the assessment per register went up by Rs 5 lakh a year, he said, urging the AMC to take steps against those involved for not carrying out the four-year evaluation in the north, south, east and the central zones.

Congress corporator from Dariapur Hasan Khan Pathan threatened that the residents of his areas would not pay property tax unless bills without interest were issued. He said that due to administrative lapses, the bills were not issued and now the AMC had levied 18 per cent interest for not paying the bills on time. Vinod Modi, another Congress corporator from the same area, said the Padma-ni-pole was getting polluted water throughout the year despite requests to rectify the problem.