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`Extortion' charge against Ghaziabad civic body

Staff Reporter

Flat owners up in arms over miscalculation of taxes

GHAZIABAD: Nearly 1,500 flat owners of five co-operative group housing societies in the Kaushambi area on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border have alleged that the Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam was "extorting" money in the name of house and water tax. They have accused the civic body of miscalculating their house tax and demanding water tax without any supply.

Claiming that the Mayor of Ghaziabad, D. C. Garg, had agreed to their demands and also asked senior civic body officials to do the needful in this connection, the Resident Welfare Association of All Five Housing Societies spokesperson, Mohan Singh, charged the GNN Commissioner, R B Maurya, with "overlooking" the directions of the Mayor and other elected representatives of the area.

According to Mr. Singh, on behalf of the residents of the five cooperative housing societies -- Simant Vihar, Asha Pusp Vihar, Neelam Vihar, Siddharth Niketan and Lumbini Apartments -- the RWA has been pursuing its case for the past one year.

"We want that the arbitrary house tax structure to be withdrawn. We also want waiver of last year's water tax as only from this month we have started receiving supply from the multi-crore Ganga water project," he claimed. The civic body had advertised in newspapers that Re.1 per sq. ft. would be charged from those whose houses face the road that are more than 12 metres wide. But a majority of the houses in these five societies do not fall in this category as they face roads that are around 9 metres in width, for which 60 paise per sq. ft. has been fixed by the civic body, he said, adding that the GNN was charging more house tax.

"The Mayor has listened to out plea and agreed that we were paying more house tax. Even his directions to the Municipal Commissioner have failed to bring us any respite. We want justice, and if the Nagar Nigam fails to listen to our pleas, we have no choice but to move the court," he added.

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`Extortion' charge against Ghaziabad civic body

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