Using its drone survey, Greater Chennai Corporation has identified around 30,000 vacant plots of land across the city. Of these, around 5,000 have not registered with the civic body as vacant plots and have not paid vacant land tax that the corporation collects.
The civic body has directed owners of these plots to register themselves and pay up the tax immediately. “We plan to complete this process within one month,” said a senior corporation official.
The cash-strapped civic body estimates to collect around Rs 25 crore from this. This measure is a result of inter-departmental suggestions, especially the health department, which found that vacant plots were accumulators of stagnant water and garbage, and were breeding ground of mosquitoes. This was observed during anti-dengue drives, an official said. This drive will help the corporation in documenting all the owners and hence will enable them in collecting penalties during future anti-dengue drives, the official said.
There is a similar plan to link completion certificates of under-construction buildings to anti-dengue fines as well, given that they are also source of dengue-causing mosquitoes.
The vacant land tax has been in vogue since October 2009 when the council passed a resolution to collect it. According to civic body sources, in a thriving commercial hub like Chennai, keeping a land vacant is considered a waste of resources. Collection of vacant land tax is also one of the ways the corporation is trying shore up its revenues after the hike in property tax rates was reversed.
Sources said the rates fixed is 50 paisa per square feet for land along interior roads and Rs 1.5 per square feet on bus route roads.
Owners of vacant lands have been asked to check if their plots have been registered with the civic body. Relevant documents should be immediately submitted to the zonal office, an official said. “Otherwise we would be constrained to collect an additional penalty as well,” the official said.
