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North body proposes hike in property tax
New Delhi: The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (north corporation) commissioner on Monday proposed a hike of 2 percentage points in property taxes across all
New Delhi: The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (north corporation) commissioner on Monday proposed a hike of 2 percentage points in property taxes across all categories of residential units here.
This would include the most posh colonies — Civil Lines, Jhandewalan and Pusa Road among others — which fall under the ‘C’ category would go up to 13%, if the House (political wing) of the corporation approves it.
The Basic Unit Area Value (BUAV) of this (C) category of properties, on the basis of which property tax is calculated, is ₹400. The north corporation does not have any ‘A’ or ‘B’ category of properties.
The D and E category of properties -- which lie in areas like Ashok Vihar, Pashchim Vihar, Chandni Chowk and Balmiki Colony with BUAV of between ₹320 and ₹270 -- will also be hiked to 13% of their annual property value, if approved.
Lastly, the F, G and H categories of properties -- which include low-income settlement colonies and rural villages like Nangloi, Burari, Alipur, etc. with BUAV between ₹230 and ₹100 -- will see a property tax of 9%, if approved.
Commissioner Varsha Joshi, in her budget speech, said, “Our estimated income for financial year 2020-21 is ₹9304.26 crore while the estimated expenditure for the same year is ₹9,303.57 crore, leaving just a margin of ₹0.69 crore in between.”
Joshi also proposed a hike of 5% in non-residential properties across all the categories and implementation of higher Basic Unit Area Values (BUAV), as recommended by the Municipal Valuation Committee (MVC) IV.
“BUAV in north Delhi was last revised in year 2004 on the basis of MVC-I, and their non-revision is a major reason behind the north corporation being unable to increase its house tax revenue,” Joshi said.
The political wing of the north corporation, though, did not seem to be very enthused with the idea of house tax hikes. BJP leader and Standing Committee Chairperson of the north body, Jai Prakash, said, “We have widened our tax net substantially this year from ₹3.76 lakh to ₹3.86 lakh, and our house tax income has gone up by ₹25.25 crore. We might not need to raise house tax rates since unauthorized colonies will be regularized soon and start paying taxes.”
