Till February 28, the Urban Development Tax collected by revenue officials at Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) since last April 2019 was Rs 64 crore which is higher than that collected (Rs 44 crore) in 2018-19 for the same period. The collection though better than last year, officials of Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) are yet to collect more than Rs 500 crore of Urban Development Tax (UD Tax).
As per the officials, the UD tax is still being collected on the old property survey done in the year 2005 due to which JMC is in financial losses. The city has expanded in area and in population in two decades and more properties need to be added under those taxable.
Deputy commissioner revenue Naveen Bhardhwaj said that they have added 2,000 properties this year. “City has expanded so more properties need to be included. Taxable property survey is yet to be completed and till then we conducted our survey and added around 2,000 properties. That is one of the major reasons that we were able to collect more than last year,” said Naveen.
As per the revenue officials at JMC only 1.33 lakh properties have been registered as taxable in JMC although more than 7 lakh are still remaining. The project to complete the property survey in Jaipur was given to a private company in 2015 that should have completed the process till now. As the work is not completed even after five years, government has decided to terminate the contract of the company but due to this JMC will have to face severe revenue losses.
Officials of JMC were expecting to touch at least Rs 100 crore collection this year but this seems to be a distant dream. “We were busy in Swachhta Survekshan, now dates of urban body election is coming closer. After that population census or some other target will be given to the officials. When are we supposed to work when we will be engaged in other works,” remarked one JMC official.
JMC has started organising UD tax collection camps in different places of the city starting from Monday (March 1) till March 20, 2020.
