BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has decided to reduce the motor vehicle tax slabs from five to three by amending the relevant provisions of the Odisha Motor Vehicle Taxation Act, 1975.A proposal in this regard was approved at the meeting of the State Cabinet presided by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in the Secretariat here on Saturday.
The tax slabs have been reduced from 6, 8, 10, 12 and 20 per cent to 6, 8 and 10 per cent depending on the cost of the vehicles. As per the decision, six per cent tax will be imposed on vehicles worth less than `5 lakh while vehicles costing between `5 lakh and `10 lakh will have eight per cent tax on them. Ten per cent tax will be imposed on vehicles costing more than `10 lakh.
The Cabinet also decided to reduce tax on stage/contract carriages in the category of air-conditioned deluxe and sleeper and fully built air-conditioned sleeper following opposition from bus owners, Chief Secretary AP Padhi told mediapersons. Besides, the rate of tax per standing passenger which was 50 per cent of the tax payable by sitting passengers of a state carriage has also been reduced to 25 per cent.
The Chief Secretary said a proposal to reduce the rental charges for core space and incubation space in all designated Government owned IT towers/facilities to `20 per square feet for super built up area was approved by the Cabinet. The OCAC tower, fortune tower, Idco tower, tower 2000 and tower 2010 at Mancheswar and STPI tower at Gothapatna are designated as Government owned IT towers/facilities and all IT/ITeS/ESDM entrepreneurs and companies operating out of these towers will be eligible to get this reduced subsidy as per Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy, 2014.
However, the Chief Secretary said the start up IT/ITeS/ESDM entrepreneurs/companies taking incubation space in these designated IT towers will be eligible for further subsidy as per the ICT Policy, 2014.The Cabinet cleared a proposal to raise the corpus of the contingency fund from `400 crore to `1400 crore temporarily. Since the Assembly is not in session, the corpus fund will be enhanced by an ordinance to meet the urgent need.
Padhi said two rural water supply projects in Puri and Ganjam districts taken up under Buxi Jagabandhu Assured Water Supply to Habitations (BASUDHA) was cleared. The Cabinet approved the lowest tender of GVPR Engineers Limited, Hyderabad of `387.59 crore for implementation of the project. The project, by which 2.9 lakh people of 305 villages of the two districts will be benefited, has been targeted to be completed within 24 months.