The Indian Express 02.04.2013
Property tax: Deadline over, no decision on unit values
Joint commissioner says people will have to pay tax from April 1.
The Municipal Corporation and district administration, after
making a lot of fuss over the proposed property tax and setting the
deadline of April 1 for the implementation of the same, on Monday failed
to fix the unit values and complete the survey by the deadline.
“The property tax will not be fully implemented before September
as the survey is yet to be done in a majority of areas. There are many
other changes which are being considered at the top level in its
structure,” said an MC officer, requesting anonymity.
However, when contacted, joint commissioner P S Ghuman, who had
earlier said that there would be no delay in implementation of tax and
DC would call a meeting to fix unit values soon, on Monday told Ludhiana
Newsline, “Due to some unavoidable reasons, finalisation of zoning and
unit values is still pending but this does not mean that tax
implementation has been delayed. Whenever the values are finalised,
people will have to pay tax from April 1 only which means that their tax
will be calculated from April 1.”
However, the mystery over the actual position of property tax
proposal still remains a mystery as Congress MLA Bharat Bhushan Ashoo
had something different and interesting to share.
Ashoo said, “Government is altogether re-considering the whole
proposal under Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. But one thing
is final that the tax will be implemented for sure. It is the efforts of
Congress which have borne fruit as it was only after meeting with DC in
which we did not allow unit values to be finalised as they were too
high, that the proposal is being re-considered all over by committee of
some MLAs under Deputy Chief Minister.”
He added that after a particular meeting, DC has called no other meeting or taken any action.
Ashoo added that the government was looking at all options to
simplify the whole structure of tax to a maximum level and reduce tax
values to a minimum for residential areas.
“Now a discussion will be held only after committee gives out its
new scheme. Till then nothing is on cards for Ludhiana,” he said.
Deputy Commissioner Rahul Tewari was not available for comment.
