The Pioneer 15.11.2010
Centre’s properties in MCD areas have to pay for civic servicesParvaiz Sultan | New Delhi
Declaring that though properties owned by the Union Government have immunity from paying property tax to the civic bodies, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has resolved that it is entitled to collect certain amount of charges for services being rendered to them falling under its jurisdiction.
As there are not criteria at present with the Assessor and Collector Department of the body until now, it has proposed a formula for service charges to evade any confusion among certain Government departments. The amount payable to the MCD will depend on the status of the area where a particular property is situated. A proposal has been drafted in this regard and will soon be presented before the standing committee for the approval. Once the said proposal is given nod by the standing committee, the MCD will be enabled to recover 75 per cent of property tax if the Union property is located in any of the approved colonies or unauthorised colonies. “If any property belonging to the Centre and situated in urbanised villages, unauthorised colonies, rural villages and others, we will be liable for service charges at 50 per cent of the total property tax. If in an area service is nil, property will be levied 33.3 per cent of the property tax,” a senior MCD official said.
He further clarified, in accordance with the Section 119 of the Delhi Municipal Act, the properties of the Government are exempted from payment of property tax but considering the scarcity of funds, it was decided to enable local bodies to charge certain amount as service charges for general services such as street lights, drainage, sanitation, horticulture, approach roads and other civic amenities being provided by it. “After careful consideration, it was resolved that payment should be made to local bodies towards service charges in lieu of property tax in respect of the Central Government properties. To substantiate its claim for recovering service charges, the corporation has several office memorandums (OMs) issued from time to time,” he said.
“The idea behind issuing the said OMs was that the Central Government will make payment in respect of their properties as compensation for the specific services rendered by the local bodies, which include not only direct services such as water/electric supply, scavenging etc but also general services like street lighting and drainage etc irrespective of the fact that whether internal services are being provided or not by the civic bodies,” said the civic body official.
It was further added that the objective of the move is to strike a balance between the requirements of the funds of the local agencies and the constitutional provisions.
The said proposal was placed before the standing committee for approval in the last meeting on November 10 but it could not be discussed as members of the panel disturbed the proceedings of the meeting on charges of property tax from rural areas and village properties. Consequently, the meeting was forced to adjourn without taking agenda into consideration.
