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Gurgaon civic body ropes in cops, satellite to meet challenge of house tax survey
The Millennium City is a technology hub. The municipal corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) out to calculate house tax is living up to the reputation, reports Sanjeev K Ahuja.
The Millennium City is a technology hub. The municipal corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) out to calculate house tax is living up to the reputation.
Denied access into 30 premises, including 15 hi-end residential apartments, three malls and a number of industrial units such as Maruti-Suzuki and Hero Honda, the MCG has decided to take the help of satellite images and the police to crack down on the unwilling.
Senior MCG officials said they would take the satellite images of a few properties to calculate house tax.
Municipal Commissioner R.K. Khullar said he has sent ‘personal notices’ to the top functionaries such as the chairman and managing directors as well as the owners of all the 30 properties, warning them of strict action.
The commissioner has given them seven days to comply with the orders, Khullar said.
If not, the corporation will charge penalty from the defaulters and could also take away their right to file objection to the house tax assessment made by the MCG, he said.
“We have no other option but to take the help of police to enter the premises of these 30 organisations who did not allow access to the field surveyors for a house tax assessment despite a number of attempts made by them,” Khullar told Hindustan Times.
“The surveyors were turned back on some pretext or the other every time they tried to enter their premises. We have shot notices in the name of CMDs and owners directly,” he added.
But the majority of the alleged defaulters have feigned ignorance of any house tax assessment drives and also refuted the allegations that the tax surveyors were denied access into their premises.
The officials of Maruti-Suzuki that has a factory spread over 300 acres of land in Gurgaon said they had not received any notices from the MCG.
“Some people who had claimed to have come from the MCG had approached us sometime in September last year but they had failed to produce documents to substantiate their claim and were denied entry into the factory,” a Maruti spokesperson said.
A Hero Honda spokesperson stated in a written communiqué, “We have not received any request from the municipal corporation to visit our Gurgaon plant for conducting any survey, so there is no question of refusing them entry.”
