Urban News

Indian Express  03.12.2010

Civic body out to claim acquired land, but finds no records for decades

With land scams on the rise in city, the Pune Municipal Corporation has embarked on a drive to ensure that the plots acquired by it remain intact. As a first step, it has decided to get its name registered on the 7x12 extracts and property card so that there is no illegal dealings on its land.

The PMC, however, finds itself in a peculiar situation after the State Land Records Department has sought registered documents of land acquisition — it found that there was no such practice for decades. “The PMC has been registering its name in the 7x12 extract or property card for land acquired since 2003. However, the civic body had not changed the revenue records for land acquired from 1960 till 2003,” said deputy municipal commissioner and PMC land acquisition and estate officer Sudhakar Telang.

Telang said there was also no record of the number of plots owned by the civic body, for which revenue records had not been done in the name of PMC. He said the number of such plots could be very high. “The administration came across a new problem with the Land Records Department asking for the registered documents of land acquisition, which are not available with the civic body as it was not a practice in the past. The land owners were given compensation and the acquisition was done physically.”

Civic activist Vijay Kumbhar said the administration had failed to implement a foolproof system to ensure that there is no illegal dealing of plot it has acquired. “The PMC acquires land and if it remained undeveloped for long, then there is scope of illegal dealings. The administration should immediately change the ownership records on 7x12 extract and property card.”

Kumbhar said the personnel appointed to protect the land had also failed to perform their responsibilities, which increased the chances of illegal dealings or encroachment. He said the transfer of development rights (TDR) system for compensating the land acquired should be foolproof so that there would be no instances of compensation being sought twice for the same property.

The Deccan Chronicle  03.12.2010

Dec. 2: After failing to get cellular companies to pay tax on their cell towers, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has decided to instead tax the owners of the buildings on which the cell towers are installed.

Officials said that since building owners were collecting huge rentals on towers, it amounted to commercial activity. The owners have to pay tax on towers in addition to property tax they are paying on the building.

“For any commercial activity, the management or owner has to obtain a trade licence from GHMC. Besides, the property tax is more on buildings with commercial activity. So it has been decided to collect additional tax on towers from owners of the buildings,” GHMC additional commissioner, finance, Mr Hari Krishna said.

The civic body has fixed the tax rate between Rs 25 and Rs 60 per square feet of the area covered by a cell tower. The rate will vary depending on the locality. The corporation hopes to raise Rs 2 crore per annum by taxing building owners.

Meanwhile, several cellular firms have approached the High Court against GHMC’s diktat of a one-time payment of ` 1 lakh for installation of cell towers. The companies are questioning the rationale and criteria adopted by the civic body in fixing the amount.

GHMC chief city planner, Mr G.V. Raghu said there are nearly 3,000 towers installed by various cellular companies in the city.