The Salt Lake civic body has introduced the tax on grounds of “visual pollution”. “We decided to impose the tax in the beginning of the year and started sending out notices from February,” said municipality chairperson Krishna Chakraborty.

“The tax will be collected at the rate of Rs 109 per square foot and we hope to earn close to Rs 2 crore a year from over 300 such billboards across the township,” Chakraborty said. The visual tax of a standard 300 sqft billboard would work out to Rs 32,700 a year. Earlier, only hoardings on roads and municipal land were taxed by the Salt Lake civic body.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation had brought hoardings on private premises under the tax ambit in 1985. The rate in Calcutta varies from Rs 110 to Rs 800 per square foot depending on the location and size of the hoarding.

The Salt Lake civic chairperson said the decision has been given the go-ahead by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, known for her stand against any fresh levy on citizens as was evident from her opposition to the fare hike in Wednesday’s railway budget. “We have already got the green light from the chief minister. The tax will not affect ordinary citizens but only those running a business from their premises,” she said.

Bidhannagar Municipality’s move, however, faced stiff opposition from billboard owners and outdoor advertising agencies, who submitted a memorandum to the chairperson on Thursday, calling for a reduction in the rates. They also denied having received any notice from the civic body.

“The municipality never informed us about the fee. It should at least be introduced from next financial year,” said Bidhan Ganguly, the secretary of the Bidhannagar Advertisement Association.

An attempt to pull down a billboard at Salt Lake stadium on Thursday morning ran into trouble. “The civic officials said they had an order to pull it down because we had not paid tax for 15 years. We showed them papers that proved all payments till 2014 had been made to the sports department, which owns the land on which the billboard stands,” said Anindya Banerjee, director of Enkon. It was only after the agency representatives met Chakraborty that they realised a new visual tax had been imposed.

According to municipality sources, there are close to 50 billboards on the Salt Lake stadium premises alone. The municipality has asked the Sports Authority of India, which owns a part of the stadium, to include the visual tax when it renews the contracts with billboard agencies and pay the money to the civic body.

The municipality has also undertaken a survey to list legal and illegal hoardings in the township and has so far come across 180 legal and 167 illegal hoardings.

“We have already pulled down close to 40 illegal hoardings and if the owners fail to pay the taxes we will pull down more,” Chakraborty said.

The civic authorities have also proposed to increase the licence fee of billboards on municipal land from Rs 209 per sqft to Rs 450 per sqft.

Eden had shrunk from size 89,000 to 60,000 in the run-up to the World Cup, leaving many dismayed at the thought of their favourite stadium losing its famous reverberating roar. The unofficial capacity, people standing included, used to be around 1,30,000 back in those days when an international match at the ground meant looking for tickets months in advance.

The additional seats that will take Eden ahead of DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai — both currently have the same capacity — have been planned in Block J. A second tier will be added to that block after the Indian Premier League (IPL) starting next month and elections to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) in July.

“The roofs of the newly constructed blocks B, C, K and L are being fitted right now and we hope to finish before the IPL season commences. The turnstiles and the proposed upper tier of Block J should be ready by the start of the 2013 edition of the IPL,” CAB joint secretary Biswarup Dey said.

But will giving Eden back its size translate into restoring its reputation as cricket’s most enthusiastic — and noisiest — amphitheatre? Former cricketer Devang Gandhi said he was “very happy” about his home ground regaining top place in the stadium capacity stakes, only to add that it wasn’t just about numbers anymore.

“I have watched matches from the lounges in all the top grounds of the country and my experience has been the best in one of the Eden corporate boxes,” Devang said.

T20 cricket, corporate style, is what has kept Eden ticking of late. The once discerning Eden crowd that loved its Test cricket as much as it did the shorter game was sorely missed during the India-West Indies Test in November last year as well as the ODI against England in October. The ODI turnout of less than 27,000 was the lowest at the ground for a game featuring India.

The CAB is, of course, hoping for a turnaround soon. “Calcutta still loves its cricket and the crowds will come back. We want Eden to be prepared for that, hence the expansion,” an official said.

An engineer involved in the project said the Block J platform would have to be pulled down to lay a new foundation for two-tier seating arrangements. Turnstiles will be set up for match passes with magnetic strips on the reverse.

Block J is to the left of the BC Roy Club House.

The CAB has already spent around Rs 100 crore on the first phase of development, which included pulling down blocks B, C, K and L and redoing them with a mezzanine floor lined with plush corporate boxes.

Apart from the new chairs in the galleries, the ground now has food courts, cleaner toilets, a 3,000sq ft TV production room, underground reservoirs and fire-fighting facilities like hydrants. Sources said Rs 11 crore was being spent on the roofing, done with aluminium sheets imported from Germany.

“The roof has been designed to match the false ceiling and lighting around the corporate boxes,” an official said.

Eden could also do with more heads under those roofs.

Duped: Two youths, posing as cops, duped a woman in Behala and stole gold jewellery from her on Wednesday afternoon. Jharna Acharya, 65, a resident of Biren Roy Road (East), was about to enter a medicine shop when the duo approached her and advised her to take off the ornaments she was wearing, citing incidents of snatching in the area. They helped her put the jewellery inside her bag and left. Acharya found glass bangles in the bag after she returned home.

Suicide: Abhranil Mal, 23, a first-year student at Shrish Chandra College in Shyambazar, committed suicide by consuming sleeping pills inside a garage on APC Road late on Wednesday. Police said Mal, a resident of Raja Dinendra Street, had left behind a suicide note saying he had been depressed because of his inability to contribute to his family’s earnings.

JU election: An alliance of the Federation of Arts Students (FAS) and the Democratic Students Union (DSO), the students’ wing of the SUCI, won the arts faculty students’ union elections in Jadavpur University. The seats of chairperson, general secretary and assistant general secretary (day) went to the FAS while the SFI bagged the post of assistant general secretary (evening). The elections were held on Wednesday and the results declared on Thursday. The SFI had won all the seats last year.

Fake currency: Mohammad Rehan, 25, a resident of Narkeldanga, was arrested from the Moulali crossing on Thursday evening for carrying fake currency notes. A hundred Rs 500 notes were found on him.

Accident: Mohammad Shanwaz, 30, died after a jeep knocked him down on Central Garden Reach Road around 5.30am on Thursday. Shanwaz, a local resident, was taken to SSKM Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

GATE topper: Kamalika Chatterjee, a Jadavpur University student, has topped the mechanical engineering discipline of the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) 2012.

Mamon Dhar lodged a complaint with the airport police station on Thursday, saying she had received several calls on her mobile phone asking her to ensure that the March 9 FIR was withdrawn within 24 hours. The FIR named seven youths who had allegedly assaulted constable Ashim Kumar Dam.

“The callers abused me and threatened to raid our house again and rape me if we don’t take back the complaint,” said the Birati resident, scared but determined to keep fighting for justice. “They are targeting me because the entire family is numb with shock and I am the only one protesting. But the threat calls can’t silence me. I will keep up the fight, even if I am attacked for a second time. Jodi benchey thaki, er sesh dekhey chhaarbo (Will see the end of it if I am alive). I will identify the youths during the TI parade even if that means risking my life.”

Mamon wants to meet chief minister Mamata Banerjee and request her to ask the police to speed up the probe into the death of her uncle. “The police may have been doing their bit but it’s not enough. It’s a week since the incident but several of those named in the FIR are still at large.”

Five youths had turned up at the Dams’ two-storeyed house near Bisharpara railway station in Birati and teased Mamon and forcibly smeared her with colours. They left after her uncles protested but returned in a larger group, armed with guns, wickets and hockey sticks.

One of the youths hit Ashim on the head with a hockey stick and another stabbed him in his abdomen, hands and legs. The gang also assaulted other members of the family, including Ashim’s brother Sekhar and their 78-year-old mother. The constable died of cerebral haemorrhage at a private hospital in the city on Sunday morning.

The Dams have named seven youths in the FIR but only three of them have been arrested — Abhijit Ghosh, Debu Mukherjee and Tapan Chanda. A fourth youth — Babu Chakraborty — has been picked up though his name does not figure in the FIR.

A senior officer of the Bidhannagar police commissionerate claimed “no stones have been left unturned” in the probe into the assault and harassment. “Four persons have been arrested in the past three days. A hunt is on for the rest. We are also trying to identify the persons who had made the threat calls,” the officer said.

“The racketeers had opened two placement offices by the name of Baba Enterprise on Lenin Sarani and GC Avenue. They charged each candidate between Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,000,” said a police officer.

The applicants were told that the amount included enrolment fee for the placement agency, training and uniform. The arrested women acted as counsellors.

“The candidates were asked to wait for their turn to get inducted into the agency. The recruitment calls, however, never came,” said an officer of Bowbazar police station.

Police identified the arrested as Monish Saha, Amit Kumar Singh, Neha Roy and Gayatri Majumder. Another accused, Palash Guha Niyogi, is yet to be arrested.

Four complaints lodged with Bowbazar police station led to the arrests. Cops suspect the gang had duped dozens of youths.

“Most of our cricket is played in these conditions in India… The tracks Down Under were helpful for seamers as it had a lot of bounce but here it is different. We will have to remember how we used to bowl in Ranji Trophy.

“In the subcontinent, compared to other countries, you have to mix it up more, bowl more slower deliveries and use subtle variations,” Vinay said on the eve of India’s match against Bangladesh.

Vinay feels that use of two Kookaburra balls from both the ends has been a help for new-ball bowlers but at the same time the batsmen also have a few things going their way.

“Two new balls is a real help for the seamers. The Kookaburra ball doesn’t swing much. With new balls at both ends, the hardness remains. But again, the batsmen can also go for their shots on these flat pitches.”

For Vinay, batting second on the Sher-e-Bangla strip has been more advantageous.

“It’s a batting track. In the first innings, the ball comes on to the bat slightly slower than under lights when it’s the conditions are better for batting.”

With two new balls, the reverse swing hasn’t been a potent weapon in recent times, but in Mirpur, the roughness of the wicket has helped the bowlers.

“In the past, there was much more reverse swing compared to now. However, in the last game, the ball did reverse as the wicket was rough. If you get a good wicket, then it is very difficult,” said Vinay.

The Karnataka medium-pacer, who has played 22 ODIs till date, feels that first impression of new bowling coach Joe Dawes was “good.”

“We didn’t get much time to interact with him yet. There are many things to learn from a bowling coach. We’ll see how it goes when we have one-on-one conversations… Definitely, I will try to take his inputs to improve my bowling.”

Asked about a defendable target, Vinay replied: “Any target in the range of 280-plus will be good to defend.”

Meanwhile, Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim said that their main aim will be to quickly get rid of two in-form men Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli.

“Gambhir and Kohli have been batting really well. Our bowlers need to hit the right areas and get rid of the duo as quickly as possible. It’s a batting friendly wicket and I believe that we have capable batsmen to chase a big total,” Rahim said.

Talking about India’s bowling, Rahim said: “India’s bowling is not as strong as Pakistan and Sri Lanka’s attack.”

Bhowanipore Club entered the semi-final of the CAB senior knock-out tournament defeating Tapan Memorial Club by 16 runs, on Thursday. Abhishek Das scored 116 for the winners.

Brief scores: Bhowanipore Club 278/6 in 45 overs (266+12 penalty) (Abhishek Das 116). Tapan Memorial 262/5 in 45 overs (Adipya Sengupta 69, Amit Shaw 67; Amit Mehera 3/57). Bhowanipore Club won by 16 runs.

Vashum blow

East Bengal midfielder Reisangmi Vashum, who got injured while playing in the AFC Challenge Cup, may be out of action for about a month, fears coach Trevor James Morgan.

“He is on plaster and may be out for about a month,” Morgan said on Thursday. Mohun Bagan’s Sunil Chetri and Jewel Raja — who also got injured — will join the team after three days and the extent of their injuries will be assessed after that.

TODAY IN SPORT

SOCCER: IFA Shield final, East Bengal vs Prayag United, from 2.30pm at Salt Lake Stadium

“It is an honour for me to be a part of Streer Patra. I am sure any other actor too would have jumped at such an opportunity. I connect personally to the subject of strongwilled women as well as the play, which portrays the value and selfrespect of women in the society. Though written ages ago, it is not outdated. People can still relate to it. It is like a reminder,” she said.

When we asked her about the experience of performing in Kolkata, she said, “I look forward to performing here as the audience comprises theatre lovers who are enthusiastic and intelligent. You really don’t get that kind of love anywhere else. Therefore, Kolkata occupies the number one position on my list.”

Seema is currently working on ” Manjunath”, directed by Sandeep Verma. “The post-production work of Deepa Mehta’s “Midnight’s Children” is almost over. The film is expected to release this year,” she said.

“Manjunath” is an NFDC production and I am excited about it. I also have up my sleeve “Baro Mash,” which is adapted from a Marathi Novel. There are other projects also which I would soon be signing but I’d rather not say anything about them now,” said Seema.

He gave to the world of literature some memorable charactes like Feluda, the sleuth and scientist, Professor Shonku. Satyajit Ray has to his credit several published short stories.