Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah defending the hike in property tax said on Saturday that, the hike was necessary to fund the State’s infrastructure development.

The Chief Minister, who was speaking to mediapersons after inaugurating a flyover in Rajajinagar, informed that the zonal revision for property tax had been put on hold on the advice of Bengaluru-in-charge minister, K J George and Mayor Manjunath Reddy as that would overburden the public.

The BBMP has presented a budget of Rs 8000 crore and the revenue it collects is Rs 1900 crore. The additional Rs 6000 crore has to be collected.

“Drinking water facilities, traffic congestion, garbage disposal are some of the basic problems we need to deal with and we need more revenue for that,” he said.

BJP corporators who had created a ruckus over the increase in property tax in the BBMP council, withdrew their protest Saturday morning. Opposition leader Padmanabha Reddy, demanded the Mayor’s resignation for calling them and other corporators “third grade politicians.”