New taxes apart, an exciting year awaits Gujarat

Though you may be cringing at the prospect of being pinched by the proposed new taxes, the state government has also chalked-out several reforms pertaining to better governance and people welfare.

Swarnim Gujarat — heralding a golden future
Gujarat has grand celebration plans for its golden jubilee — undoubtedly the biggest event of the year in the state. Chief minister Narendra Modi has issued orders to organise the grand inaugural function of the celebrations at the Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad on May 1. This will mark the beginning of a year-long celebration process which will culminate with celebrations in Gandhinagar on May 1, 2011. The CM has also instructed officials to make 225 swarnim jayanti sankalpa raths for each taluka, which will travel through all villages in the talukas during January and February. At present there is only one rath which has so far covered over 200 places in the state. All government departments have been asked to achieve their golden jubilee goals and especially achieve targets of individual schemes as well as to chalk-out their plans. The government has allocated Rs50 crore budget for the celebration.

New airport at Dholera
The proposed international airport at Dholera, 80 km from Ahmedabad, has got an in-principle technical and environment clearance and final clearance is likely to be given soon, said informed sources close to the development. The government has already notified land for this Rs2,500 crore new international airport project and ground work on it will actually begin this year.

New land administrative regime soon
The state government is likely to replace the age-old Bombay land revenue code with the new Gujarat Land Administrative Act soon. A new bill for this is likely to come up soon. The bill aims to abolish the cumbersome system of non-agriculture (NA) certification along with replacing the 130-year-old code. The new Land Administrative Bill has around 57 sections less compare too the existing code. The new act will correspondingly change all land policies related to different departments and land allocation for the different purposes.

Be ready to pay more taxes
Be ready to pay more towards new taxes and civic charges for the various civic amenities you enjoy. The state government is planning to introduce various newer taxes and charges to increase the income of the various ULBs (urban local bodies). The issue was discussed by at length in the ‘chintan shibir’ held in Kutch recently. These were suggested to increase income from tax resources & non-tax resources while discussing various ways of optimising tax resources, non-tax resources and capital resources.

Varsity on climate change
Good news for the environmentally conscious. Chief minister Narendra Modi has declared that the state government is mulling on establishing a university on Climate Change this year. However, it is expected that the climate change department, which was supposed to be established in the first quarter of the year 2009, will start functioning from this year.

New TP rules & regulations
The state government is planning to overhaul state’s town planning rules and regulations. New guidelines for development plan and town planning schemes for the development authority, town planning officer, CTP and government too is expected this year. Protocols to prepare, scrutinise, and take decisions and sanction/verification/rejection; specification for design and plan and to implement and monitor, and simplify development control regulations are also expected.

New policies on anvil
2010 is also likely to witness numerous new government policies which include new agro-business development policy that has been hanging fire for a long time. Along with this, policies on mall and multiplex building policy, hospital and hotel industry building policy, terror proof building policy, slum housing policy, ship building industry policy, new tourism policy, road safety policy among others are expected.

New SIRs, actual progress in DMIC, DFC, metro rail
Number of new SIRs will be created at Sanand, Pipavav, Anjar, Okha, Simar, Navlakhi, Halol-Savali, Santalpur, PCPIR (Dahej), Changodar and Hazira in 2010. Recently, the government had already notified Dholera, Dahej, Aliya-Bet SIRs. GIDC is forming a 100% subsidiary SIRs development company. Significant progress in the ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corporation (DMIC), Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), and Metro Rail project is likely to happen in 2010. Government also plans to establish 11 Multi-Modal logistic parks in Gujarat, which are likely to start this year.

Old, irrelevant laws to be scrapped for better governance
The state government had partially activated the Gujarat Law Commission to review existing laws of the state. The commission has already suggested scrapping of various age-old irrelevant laws. The commission is expected to give its second report this year and the  state government too is likely to act upon the recommendations within this year itself.

Mini polls in state after June
The state will witness a mini state election in the third quarter of the year when the general election of the six municipal corporation (Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar), 141 municipalities, all districts, taluka and village panchayat will take place in 2010.