The Deccan Chronicle 27.10.2010
Civic bodies clash over property taxHyderabad, Oct. 26: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and the Water Board are at logger heads over sharing of property tax collected within the city limits.
While the Water Board officials are demanding that the civic body should cough up 25 per cent of the `500-crore property tax it collected for the 2009-2010 financial year, the municipal corporation on the other hand is of the view that the Board is “asking for the moon.”
Officials of the Water Board say that one of the components in property tax includes the water tax. They say that as the Water Board has taken over water supply operations in the 12 surrounding municipalities from the GHMC, the Board should get its share of property tax collections.
The civic body officials said that the water tax component was excluded from the property tax when the Water Board was formed as a separate entity in the city in 1974 itself. They also maintained that the sewerage infrastructure in surrounding municipalities was still being maintained by the GHMC while the Water Board was collecting sewerage cess along with water bills in peripheral areas. Now, the GHMC is asking the Water Board to repay the sewerage cess it is collecting in the surrounding municipalities.
Senior officials in Municipal Administration and Urban Development department have constituted a joint committee comprising Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and Water Board officials to settle the property tax dispute among themselves.
