Cesses would not put any burden on common man, revenue of Rs 762 crore accrued: Deputy CM

Shimla, Aug 28 (PTI) The ten cesses imposed by the Himachal Pradesh government would not put any additional burden on the common man and revenue generated from the cesses would be utilised in public interest and welfare activities, Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri said in the assembly on Thursday.

Replying to a question of Bikram Thakur (BJP), Agnihotri informed that revenue of Rs 762 crore has been generated from ten cesses out of which some were levied during the BJP government.

The government was assuring that cess was imposed on big industrialists, liquor traders and contractors and did not affect the common man, he said.

Agnihotri informed that Rs 185 crore were collected from Motor Vahan cess, Rs 153 crore from Panchayati Raj Sanstha cess, Rs 145 from Covid cess, Rs 112 crore from milk cess, Rs 65.35 crore from Gauvansh Vikas Nidhi cess, Rs 50.4 crore from labour cess, Rs 21.78 crore from Prakritik(Natural) Kheti cess and Rs10.80 crore from Milk and Environment cess on electricity bills.

The Covid cess levied by the BJP government has been abolished and the Gauvansh Vikas Nidhi was also imposed by the BJP government, he said.

Heated exchanges were witnessed when Bikram Thakur raised questions over transparency and effectiveness of the cesses and Deputy CM said that the Finance Department was preparing stringent SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for spending the money collected through cess.

Opposition members said that the prices of sand and grit have increased due to cess on mining, while the common man was affected by cess on electricity. PTI BPL MR