New Delhi   

Tax relaxation plea for private hospitals

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JULY 9. Taking up the cause of private hospitals, dispensaries and other health service providers in the Capital, the Congress Councillor from Janakpuri, Sanjay Puri, has urged the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to consider them as "public utilities" and not categorise them as industry for calculating their property tax under the Unit Area System.

In a resolution moved before the MCD Standing Committee this week, Mr. Puri argued that there was a need to provide some relaxation to the private sector in house tax so that health services could be made affordable to Delhiites as the Union and State Governments and the civic bodies were unable to provide adequate health services to its residents. The Standing Committee Chairman, Mukesh Goel, has constituted a sub-committee to study the resolution and submit its recommendation within 15 days. A member of the MCD Hardship and Anomalies Committee, Mr. Puri said categorisation of the private hospital and dispensaries as industrial were extremely illogical and untenable. "On one hand we are failing in our duty to provide necessary health care, while on the other hand we are condemning private health services as highly commercial and making them economically unaffordable for the public at large," he said.

Referring to a Government-sponsored study done by the Voluntary Health Association of India, Mr. Puri said as many as 80 per cent of the OPD health care facilities were provided by the non-government sector along with 75 per cent of the maternity, general surgery and diagnostic services. "While governmental medical institutions provide free treatment to the poor and take minimal charge from others, the long queue here force people to go to the private health services providers, which is very costly," he said.

Mr. Puri argued that the private health services providers should be given incentives including house tax so that these could be more accessible to large sections of society.

Mr. Puri said there were 1,100 hospitals in the Capital with a strength of 40,000 beds of which the Delhi Government shared 5,391 beds, MCD (3,565), New Delhi Municipal Council (200) and Central Government (3,821). "The rest belong to the private sector," he said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi

News: Front Page | National | Tamil Nadu | Andhra Pradesh | Karnataka | Kerala | New Delhi | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | Updates: Breaking News |

Stories in this Section

• Delhi water table depleting at an alarming rate
• Traffic officer shoots driver
• Govt. schools to get back power
• Tax relaxation plea for private hospitals
• Rajya Sabha flats get piped gas
• Currency racket smashed
• STC building remains without power
• Dance party gets go-ahead
• AIIMS panel to examine Vishal Yadav
• DTC move brings extra buses, drivers
• `Reduce interest rate for MCD'
• Around the City
• Briefly
• In The Capital Today
• A sad commentary on police affairs

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu