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As 700 Parsis wait for a house, BMC asks Parsi body to pay Rs5-crore property tax
This comes after the construction at the site was halted five years back because the building had the Costal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance only till ninth floor.
Wait for 700 Parsis to get a house of their own may get longer, after the multi-storied building in Godrej Baug, Nepean Sea Road, whose construction began around 10 years back, has now received a notice for non-payment of property tax worth Rs5 crores.
This comes after the construction at the site was halted five years back because the building had the Costal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance only till ninth floor.
“We have two concerns right now – non-payment of property tax and the construction of building not being allowed to go beyond nine floors because according to CRZ, the building comes under funnel line, which means that it obstructs the sea view from Kamla Nehru Park,” said Dinshaw Mehta, former chairman of Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP), the caretaker of Parsi-Zoroastrian properties in the city, under whose leadership the plan was conceptualised.
BPP currently owns more than 5,500 flats in the city and has a waiting list of 700, wherein the needy members of the community are allotted flats. Around 10 years back, the waiting list was 1200. The under-construction building at Godrej Baug was supposed to have to 70 flats, which would have provided shelter to needy members.
“Earlier, there was merit rating scheme, wherein the flats were allotted to couples, based on different categories. However, since the last two years, we have allotted around 125 flats for free to our community members from the list of married couple and as well as those in need of the house,” said Kersi Randeria, trustee, BPP.
While authorities from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) were unavailable for comment, a notice issued at the construction site states that the owners of the property are yet to pay more than Rs5 crore.
In 2014, Maharashtra state government came up with Land Under Construction (LUC) tax, under which this building was charged with property tax ever since 2010.
Randeria said that they will soon pay the dues, following which, they would further chalk out the plan, so that the building construction work can resume.
The residential tower in question was supposed to be a 16-storey building with a swimming pool. However, ever since its inception, a section of the community was unhappy with the plan because the high-end tower is in close vicinity of Dakhmas (Towers of Silence), which was later resolved.
In 2008, the then trustees of BPP approached the Bombay High Court in a matter pertaining to allotment of 104 flats which were allotted by former trustees. Then trustees had claimed the allotment was ‘out of turn in merit rating scheme’. While the charity commissioner had asked the trust to provide the flats to applicants on priority basis, failing which he would initiate action against them. But, the High Court stayed the order passed by the charity commissioner in 2009.
