Fiscal 2023-24 ends.. with heavy rush at Govt offices

By Ankita Garg

As it was the last day of March 2024, people thronged Government offices to pay taxes, bills and other financial transactions. Office of the sub-registrar, LIC, banks, Electricity Department, RTO offices, ward office and other transaction windows remained busy till late night on Sunday. To ease the rush and for convenience of public, most of the Government offices remained open for three days Friday, Saturday and Sunday that was earlier noted as holiday. With the beginning of financial year 2024-25, price of various items are being revised with marginal hike. At the same time there are also a few product and service that have saw a decline in terms of sale price. Even LIC, post office and Mutual Fund offices saw big line of customers seeking various changes in documents and transaction related task. Property price in Bhopal saw average 7.19 % hike while toll tax for four-wheelers on four National Highways and six state highway routes will see a hike up to 7.5 per cent from April 1. Private bus operators and autos in city have also revised the fare. Fuel charges were earlier slashed by Rs 2 per litre on March 15 that brought some relief to citizens. If we talk about LPG cylinder, it saw a steep Rs 100 per cylinder on March 8.

Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) ward office also remained open on Sunday where many people visited to complete the dues. People paid their taxes and other financial task in financial year 2023-24. Sub-registrar offices remained open till 12 midnight: As per Collector’s guidelines, property price at 1,443 locations in Bhopal are set to swell on average 7.19% from April 1. People who were already done with their deals to purchase any property preferred complete the registration in order to prevent higher stamp duty charges. For three days March 29 to 31, record break number of people confirmed registry of their documents at sub-registrar office. On an average 350 to 380 properties were being registered every day in Bhopal for past one week. Adding fuel to the fire, registrar office server got down and people continue to line up. On Sunday, registrar office continued the regular working till 12 midnight and more than 600 people got their documents registered.

There are 3,900 locations in Bhopal including 3,110 urban and 790 rural locations. The new guidelines includes 1,443 locations are to see the price rise. This 1,443 locations to see the price rise includes 1,228 urban and 215 rural areas. The remaining 2,457 locations would remain same as there will be no increment in property price. New guidelines is effective from April 1 and after that people will pay extra bucks for stamp duty of their land, flat, house, etc properties. Kolar, Salaiya, Ayodhya Bypass and Misrod area are to see 25 % to 94% increment. Sources said that areas having proposal of higher price rise including infrastructure projects. Kolar area has six lane project, Ayodhya Nagar 10 lane project and 100 bed hospital and removal of Bhanpur Khanti. At Hoshangabad Road, double decker fly over, new RoB in Salaiya and demand of people became main reason of price rise.

Shell out extra bucks for toll...

2024-25. There are 102 routes in state under Public Work Department (PWD) where toll tax is being recovered from riders. Out of this 102 routes, there will be no price rise for 92 routes while ten routes are set to introduce the hike in toll price from April 1. These 10 routes have got price rise on condition of construction work. Toll tax has been revised for NHs including Gwalior- Bhind MP- UP border, Rewa- MP-UP border, Mangawa- MP-UP border and Vyavara-MP- Rajasthan border. Six state highways where price rise has been introduced are Matkuli-Tamia-Chindwara route, Jawara-Nayagaon, Chandpur- Alirajpur, Mandsaur- Sitamau, Bhopal- Dewas and Levad-Manpur.