BANGALORE: Cheers to the property owners of Kolkata! The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has decided to give the property owners a tax waiver for 2014-15 if they paint their buildings in blue and white, and not to forget that “blue” and “white” are the favorite colors of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

It was decided by the mayoral council of KMC to promote the color and hence the state government has already painted all its properties white with streaks of blue on it. According to Mayor Sovan Chatterjee the decision would bring uniformity in the color of buildings in Kolkata and it is not at all mandatory for the binding on house owners. Also the commercial buildings will not be granted the waiver."We have decided that those who paint their residential houses in blue and white after informing the KMC will be given a tax waiver for that year," city mayor Sovan Chatterjee said.

The proposal of tax evasion had been tabled earlier also but then it was turned down considering that such a plan would not be feasible in a city like Kolkata and many others thought it was undesirable. Firhad Hakim, Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister said that if the provision for reduction in taxes did not exist in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Act, an amendment had to be passed in the Assembly before the waiver of taxes came into force.