Delhi’s south civic body rolls back property tax hike suggestion

Leader of the House in SDMC, Kamaljeet Sehrawat, moved a proposal to roll back the implementation of recommendations of the Municipal Valuation Committee-3 (MVC-3). Property taxes in Delhi were last increased in 2004.

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) in its House meeting on Friday rolled back the implementation of recommendations of a valuation committee that had increased property taxes on rented non-residential properties like outlets in shopping complexes and malls. These recommendations were approved by the Corporation during the approval of budget estimates for 2019-20 in February 2019 and had been implemented from April 1, 2019. After the rollback, owners of such properties will have to pay taxes as they used to pay on or before March 31 this year.

Sehrawat said it was a proposal for the benefit of the people (owners of non-residential rented commercial properties) as their property taxes have increased three to four times after the committee’s recommendations were. (HT Photo)

Leader of the House in SDMC, Kamaljeet Sehrawat, moved a proposal to roll back the implementation of recommendations of the Municipal Valuation Committee-3 (MVC-3). Property taxes in Delhi were last increased in 2004.

Sehrawat said it was a proposal for the benefit of the people (owners of non-residential rented commercial properties) as their property taxes have increased three to four times after the committee’s recommendations were.

“Taxes in this category should have been increased by 10% to 20%, but after the implementation of the recommendations, taxes went up by as much as three to four times. We were getting lots of complaints regarding exorbitant hikes in taxes, so we have decided to roll back the recommendations for this year. We will increase taxes for this category next year after studying factors used,” Sehrawat said.

“The proposal was passed without any discussion. The rollback of revised taxes was necessary, but it should not have been done in a hurry. We raised the issue a month ago and were about to bring in a proposal,” he said.

SDMC officials, however, said this decision would lead to losses worth crores of rupees for the cash-strapped civic body.

“There around 38 malls under the SDMC as well as many complexes, so this move will incur a yearly loss of ₹80-85 crore for the corporation,” a senior SDMC official said, requesting anonymity