The Hindu : House Tax department at the receiving end

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 22, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

House Tax department at the receiving end

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 21 . Cutting across party lines, members of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi today accused the civic body's House Tax Department of being "inefficient'' in revenue collection and its officials indulging in "undue'' harassment to property owners of the Capital.

"The House Tax Department is not ready for the Unit Area Method for the assessment of property tax in Delhi, which would come into force from April 1. It would result in total chaos and the financial condition of the civic body would collapse,'' they charged during the short-notice discussion on the issue. Initiating the debate, the BJP Councillor from Rohini, charged the House Tax Department of manipulating the figures and misleading the Councillors on collection of revenue this year. "There is a sharp fall in revenue collection so far. Only 10 per cent of the potential house tax is being realised,'' he said.

Feeling the need to improve the efficiency of the Department, the Congress Councillor from Chandani Chowk, Braj Mohan Sharma, suggested constitution of an officers' committee to look into the issue. Pointing out a large number of lacunae in the Unit Area Method, the former Delhi Mayor, Jaishree Panwar, called for taking steps to increase the House Tax collection. In his reply, the Assessor and Collector, Feroze Khan, argued that there was no let up in the revenue collection by his Department. "There was delay in issuing notices this year due to confusion on the implementation of the Unit Area Method. Now we are catching up fast and by the end of the year, I am sure our house tax collection would increase by at least Rs. 60 to 70 crores,'' he said.

But his statement that ex-parte assessment of some Government properties worth Rs. 244 crores was reduced to Rs. 5.5 crores made the Standing Committee Councillors furious. "The Department should give an explanation. This in itself indicates that there is some thing wrong in the assessment of house tax by the Department,'' alleged Mr. Kumar.

The Congress Councillor, Satbir Sharma, alleged that he had personally paid a bribe of Rs. 20,000 to reduce house tax of one of his relatives from few lakhs to just Rs. 12,000. "I just fail to understand under what rule the house tax was brought down. There are thousands of such cases,'' he alleged. Earlier the Standing Committee Deputy Chairman, Ashok Jain, raised the issue of beating up of doctors and employees of the Kasturba Gandhi Hospital. "Steps should be taken to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future,'' he said.

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