A revenue loss of around Rs 250 to Rs 300 crore is being borne by Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) per year due to collection of development tax on the basis of the old data of the properties in the city which were prepared on the basis of a survey conducted in 2006. At present, tax collected is about Rs 64 crore every year from around 1,30,000 surveyed properties. However, due to no documentation, taxes cannot be collected from the thousands of houses and commercial complexes which have been constructed in the past 12 years.
In 2007, house tax was abolished and urban development tax on the houses and flat owners and others were introduced by the Rajasthan government under Section 104 of Rajasthan Municipality Act, 1959 with immediate effect. This tax was levied on residential plots of more than 300 square feet, flats measuring over 1,500 square feet and commercial plots of over 100 square feet. Further, in 2015, a firm ‘Smartraj’ was hired for the survey of urban development taxes. However, since no work has been done by this firm until now, the revenue commission is planning to hire a new firm so that new surveys can be conducted at the earliest.
However, the problem is not just limited to the issue of old data, the defaulter's list is also very high. Last year, the tax was paid by only 30,000 people while 1,00,000 were defaulters and despite issuing notices to the defaulters, tax collection from the public is a major task due to staff crunch as well. Removal of exemption given to people while filing UD tax has been recommended as a solution to the problem as it would instill responsibility in the people towards the city. Proper policies and their stringent implementation is the need of the hour in Jaipur.
Courtesy/By: Nishtha Arora
|
25 Jun 2018
