Mutton traders owe 2 cr to Kamareddy municipality

​Kamareddy: Mutton market shop-keepers owe at least Rs 2 crore to the municipality during the past 13 years as they refused to pay rent to the civic body on the grounds of lack of amenities such as water supply, power supply, toilets and so on.

There was criticism that the municipal officials and politicians formed into a syndicate to prevent auctioning off the 48 shops in the mutton market accepting bribes from the shop-keepers.

District Collector J Satyanarayana and Municipal Commissioner Vijayalakshmi visited the mutton market complex, built in 2003 at a cost of Rs 37.50 lakh.

A year ago, Municipal Commissioner Balaji Naik held a meeting of the shop-keepers and asked them to pay the arrears of rent promising them to provide various amenities.

While some responded favourably, some others approached court. When the commissioner threatened to auction off the shops to recover the rent, the traders submitted him a memorandum to re-allott the shops to them in the auction.

The then municipal administration director Prem Kumar studied the allotment of shops and suggested their allotment to the shop-keepers through auction.

The District Collector and the Municipal Commissioner asked the traders to pay the rent of eight years at the rate of Rs 1,200 per month. The traders expressed their inability to pay the amount at one go and agreed to pay taxes to the civic body from this year onwards.

The Municipal Commissioner served notices to the mutton market traders threatening to auction off the shops if the traders fail to pay taxes. The measure resulted in mounting of political pressure on the municipal commissioner.

While the people have demanded the civic body to recover the taxes, the mutton traders have been appealing to the authorities for taking a lenient view claiming that they very poor and cannot afford to pay such high amount.