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Indirapuram to be Ghaziabad city’s sixth municipal zone, civic body to levy taxes from Oct 1
GDA will pay the first instalment of ₹70 crore in a couple of days to the corporation in a separate bank account, and the date of transfer of funds will also be treated as the handover date, said officials
Days after the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) and the Ghaziabad municipal corporation, signed a MoU for the handover of the Indirapuram township to the civic agency, municipal officials said Indirapuram will become city’s sixth corporation zone and property-tax assessment will be done by the municipal corporation from this October 1.
The MoU was signed between the two agencies on September 6 for a mutually agreed amount of ₹185 crore which will be spent by the corporation exclusively for upgrade of civic infrastructure and facilities in Indirapuram.
Of the ₹185 crore, the GDA will pay the first instalment of ₹70 crore in a couple of days to the corporation in a separate bank account, and the date of transfer of funds will also be treated as the handover date, said officials.
According to district records, Indirapuram is spread over 1,222 acres and comprises about 52,572 households which pay about ₹30 crore in house tax annually. Officials said two other components of property-tax -- water tax and sewage/drainage tax -- will now be charged by the corporation.
“We are expecting GDA to transfer the first instalment within a couple of days. We intend to make Indirapuram a separate corporation zone considering the number of households and the area. For this, we will soon send a proposal to the state government for approval. I have also asked our departments to assess the manpower needs for Indirapuram and submit a plan to be forwarded to the government,” said Vikramaditya Malik, municipal commissioner.
The corporation area at present has five zones -- City zone, Mohan Nagar, Vasundhara, Vijay Nagar and Kavi Nagar. The corporation presently charges only house tax from residents of Indirapuram.
“We expect the handover to take place in a couple of days and after that, the corporation will collect all three taxes from households. The assessment will start from October 1. The pending payments due to GDA on account of service charges will also be collected by the corporation,” Malik said.
The service charges are presently collected by the GDA for provision of services such as sanitation, solid waste collection, streetlighting, etc..
The corporation officials said they have asked the GDA to prepare an estimate of pending service charges which need to be realised from households.
The tax officials of the corporation said the civic agency hopes to collect about ₹30 crore from Indirapuram in house tax.
“Once the corporation starts collecting the remaining two components, we estimate an additional revenue of ₹42 crore annually,” said Sanjeev Sinha, chief tax assessment officer, municipal corporation.
The GDA officials said the separate bank account for fund transfer is likely to be opened soon.
“Thereafter, we will immediately transfer ₹70 crore to the corporation. The date of transfer will be the handover date. The pending service charges will be realised by the corporation after the handover,” said Atul Vats, vice-chairperson, GDA.
The MoU was signed by the two agencies following a joint inspection by their officials in May.
The MoU stated that in the next six months, GDA will also arrange for 4,000 square metres (sqm) of land for solid waste transfer station and another 4,500 sqm for material recovery facility.
“The land is available for solid waste and it will be handed over to the corporation. Development of a solid waste facility is a mandated condition for a township,” Vats said.
