The Hindu : New Delhi News : Illegal colonies pay little house tax

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 04, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Illegal colonies pay little house tax

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 3. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi might have taken several measures to help people deposit their property tax, but so far no effort has been made by the civic body to collect house tax from the nearly 1,500 unauthorised colonies across the Capital. While residents of regularised colonies have been making a beeline for depositing their property tax, there is no such move among the residents of unauthorised colonies. "Except for a few unauthorised posh colonies like Sainik Farms, no tax is coming from these colonies where there are lakhs of properties," MCD officials admit.

The residents of the unauthorised colonies have been desisting from paying their house tax so far arguing that the MCD was not providing any civic amenities in their area. All this would have an adverse impact on the financial condition of the Corporation, officials said.

Under the recently amended Delhi Municipal Corporation Act that replaced the previous house tax system based on the Rental Value System by the Unit Area Method, the MCD cannot ask people to deposit their property tax. "This is the self-assessment system under which we cannot issue notices and the onus for paying the tax lies on property-owner. We would have to wait till the end of the financial year March 31. It is only after that we can issue any notice to those who have not deposited their house tax including those residing in unauthorised colonies and initiate penal action," officials said.

But by then it would be too late for the financial condition of the civic body to improve. Stating that the people-friendly Unit Area System is being welcomed as it has resulted in all-round reduction of house taxes, officials said: "The MCD was so far banking on these unauthorised colonies thinking that the house tax collected from lakhs of properties from here would compensate for the reduction in revenue collection from other sources. But it does not seem to be the case right now. There is hardly any tax coming from here."

Officials said under such circumstances, it would be difficult to collect more than Rs. 600 crores of tax against last years Rs. 920 crores and annual target of Rs. 1,200 crores. Sources said so far there has been no effort either on the part of the officials or the political leadership to ensure house tax collection from unauthorised colonies. "Who cares?", asked an official. While the MCD House Tax Department does not seem to be much bothered given that it has not chalked out any strategy to collect house tax from unauthorised colonies, the political leadership is not making any move for obvious reasons. "Residents of these colonies were not paying house tax so far. Asking them to pay house tax would certainly make the people angry and agitated as the MCD has not been providing any civic amenities in these colonies," said a senior Congress Councillor, adding that in the entire process, the MCD would be left with no money to pay even its salaries.

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