The cash-strapped civic body, which has often found itself fending even for paying salaries of the employees many times in the past couple of years, seems to be entangled in the catch-22 situation.
Any proposal related to property tax is made into a political issue by the BJP, which is in majority and does not want to be seen as “increasing the burden on the common man”, nixing any move to hike the tax rates. On the other hand, the measures to widen the tax base are yet to yield any significant results. The dues on the MCD, related to repayment of loans and interests, is `2,867 crores.
Municipal commissioner K.S. Mehra, during his budget speech for 2011-12 at a special meeting of the Standing Committee here on Wednesday, proposed a five per cent hike across all categories of properties. However, the moment he completed his speech, standing committee chairman Yogender Chandolia rejected it, much before a formal discussion taking place.
Talking to reporters, Mr Mehra said that by the next fiscal at least eight to nine lakh more properties would be in the tax net. “We are getting updated data from the Survey of India, besides our own door-to-door checking and the data that is coming from some surveys being carried out by the private companies for us. We are also providing unique identification number to every property. All this will help us in getting more people to pay house tax,” assured Mr Mehra.
He said that as against the revised estimates for 2010-11, the property tax returns were expected to be `1,050 crores, while the budget estimates for 2011-12 is expected to be `1,550 crores. The commissioner said stamp duty transfers and arrears would form a major chunk of the recoveries.
Later, Mr Chandolia told reporters that the proposal for five per cent hike will not be discussed in the committee meeting at all.