Citizens will not be burdened with enhanced property tax as the general body of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) rejected the tax hike on Tuesday. The municipal commissioner had proposed a 12% increase in the property tax while presenting the draft civic budget.
Corporators expressed their opposition to the hike saying that it was unjust to the taxpayers.
Civic officials should focus on untapped properties to recover tax. The civic body should also make sure that pending tax dues are collected, they added.
“The civic administration is showing double standards while imposing the tax and carrying out the recovery drive,” the corporators at the meeting said.
“The owners of smaller properties are targeted during the recovery. But discounts and waivers are offered to leading IT companies and commercial establishments. It is leading to loss of revenue for the PMC,” they added.
They rejected the demand to hike the tax and stressed on offering amnesty schemes for common citizens.
Corporators also demanded that the bigger tax defaulters should be targeted on priority.
The standing committee had rejected the proposed tax hike during the last week of January.
While presenting the draft budget for PMC in 2020-21 in January, municipal commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad proposed a 12% hike.
He tabled a budget of Rs 6,229 crore which was Rs 144 crore higher than last year’s budget of Rs 6,085 crore.
The increase included a 5.5% hike in general tax, 1.5% in water benefit tax and 5% in sewage benefit charges.
Civic administration was hoping to mop up additional income of Rs 150 crore from the hike.
The tax revision has been rejected by the general body for the second consecutive year. The civic administration had proposed to increase the tax by 12 % in 2019-20 too to mop up Rs 110 crore.
