Indian Express 28.04.2010

33,500 property owners in merged villages to get tax waiver

Express News Service Tags : property tax Posted: Wednesday, Apr 28, 2010 at 0420 hrs

Pune:As many as 33,500 property owners living in 18 merged villages of Pimpri-Chinchwad will not have to pay property tax up to March 31. This means the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation is slated to lose around Rs 30 crore property tax.

The decision to waive the property tax arrears of the villagers has been taken by the state government. The government has passed a resolution to the effect , a copy of which was made available to the media by MLA Vilas Lande on Monday. "The state government has taken this decision in a bid to break the deadlock between the protesting villagers and the PCMC," Municipal Commissioner Asheesh Sharma said on Tuesday. Sharma said the amnesty scheme of the state government was aimed at making the agitating villagers pay up their property tax thereby accepting their status as residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Lande said the villagers have been protesting after the government decided to merge 18 villagers around Pimpri-Chinchwad with the PCMC. "Thousands of residents have refused to pay their property tax for years now. They have been demanding delinking from Pimpri-Chinchwad. The deadlock had refused to end. With the latest government decision, thing hopefully would be resolve now," Lande said. Sharma said the 100 per cent property tax arrear waiver is applicable to those pay their current bill within one month.

“If they delay beyond a month or so, then they won't get cent per cent waiver.”

“They will be getting 70 per cent or 50 per cent waiver as per the delay they making in paying the current property tax bill," he said.

But the key question of what happens to those villagers who have been pay their property tax regularly ? Out of the 60,000 property holders, 33,500 have no paid their property tax over the years.

Lande said nothing has been decided yet by the government, but efforts are on to provide them some kind of relief.

However, Sharma said the government decision to provide amensty was aimed at making those opposing the merger status pay up.

"The move is clearly not applicable to those have been paying up regularly. It is aimed at bring those around who are objecting to the merger itself and refusing to pay property tax," he said. Calling the state government move as one-sided, Shiv Sena corporator Sulbha Ubale said,"It is a clear injustice to those who have been honestly paying their tax. Those who have not paid taxes will get relief in the form of the government amnesty while those who dutifully paid their taxes will have to suffer in silence," she said. Ubale said the issue will be taken up in the ensuing civic general body meeting.