The residents of Kadakampally resumed their agitation on Monday demanding the immediate collection of land tax, which was put on hold by the district administration on the advise given by the Advocate General. They staged a protest in front of the village office at Anayara and announced that they would intensify their agitation if the authorities did not allow them to remit the tax. ‘’If the demand is not met, we will take the agitation to the Collectorate and even to the Secretariat,’’ said Kishore S S, member of the Kadakampally Land Protection Council.
The residents who had organised a similar agitation in the first week of April, called off the protest on April 10 after District Collector Biju Prabhakar assured them that they would be permitted to remit the land tax.
The Collector had told them that they would be able to remit the tax if the govt or the HC did not issue any order against it. He had told the residents that a final decision would be taken only after seeking the views of the government as well as the AG. The district administration had decided to accept land tax from April 26 from the residents having proper documents, including tax receipts of earlier years, after the discussion held with the land owners. Kishore said that they renewed the agitation as the district administration had backtracked from its earlier decision to allow the residents to remit the land tax. He alleged that it was only to help certain persons that the tax was not being collected. The Kadakampally Land Protection Council said that if the tax was not being collected, the authorities should at least tell them the reason why it was so. ‘’The authorities have not yet given the reason why tax is not collected. We have the right to know why the tax for our land is not collected,’’ he said. Stating that the Revenue Secretary had taken away the ‘thandaper’ register, Kishore alleged that it had denied about more than 2,000 people access to details regarding their land.