by THO
A new rental value structure, for determining the property tax on households, will come into effect in Ghaziabad from April 1, for the upcoming financial year 2024-2025, the Ghaziabad municipal corporation officials said on Saturday, after the civic body approved the new structure even as the mayor and councillors opposed the move, citing increased burden on taxpayers.
Owing to the opposition by the councillors and the mayor, the decision to implement the new structure was not conveyed to the corporation board in its meeting on January 9, even though the corporation published on its website the order implementing the tax structure, signed by municipal commissioner Vikramaditya Malik, on January 8.
The order said the state government had approved the new structure on October 27, 2023, and hence, it was getting implemented.
Civic officials said the present tax structure has uniform rental values for all localities. As a result, the households in prime localities, as well as those in lower segment localities, end up paying similar taxes.
The annual property tax is computed on the basis of rental values, said officials.
According to the existing tax structure, the rental values of properties range from 0.87 paise per square foot to ₹1.32 per square foot for different colonies.
Under the new structure, the residential colonies have been grouped under three categories – A, B and C.
Category A comprises prime and upscale localities; category B comprises localities which are less developed while category C comprises localities that are least developed.
Under the new structure, colonies in category A will have rental value in the range of ₹1.75 to ₹4 per square foot; category B colonies will have values 0.50p to ₹3.5 per square foot while category C colonies will have rental values in the range of 0.30p to ₹3 per square foot.
The corporation in its order has also placed different residential colonies under the A, B and C categories.
The new rental range includes rate for RCC houses, permanent roof and temporary houses, besides rate of land and plots.
“The new property tax structure has been approved by the state government, so, we have decided to implement it from April 1 this year. The public objections were invited and properly disposed of. This proposal remained undecided in the board (in June 2022) and hence was sent to the state government for approval. After the government’s nod in writing, we have decided to implement it. It was also discussed and raised by one of the board members in recent meeting (on January 9),” said Malik.
Officials said the corporation, in February 2021, invited public objections about the new structure and 318 objections were received and disposed of.
“Currently, we have lowest rental values in place ranging 0.87p to ₹1.32 (per square foot) despite the city being a part of the National Capital Region. This is the lowest among various corporations in the state. So, the implementation of new structure will bring the rates on par with those in other corporation areas. It is expected that the new structure will bring in additional revenue of about ₹100 crore or more,” said Malik.
The corporation jurisdiction area has 100 residential wards and about 452,000 households. A GIS survey by corporation has estimated that additional 240,000 households will also come under the tax net.
The decision to implement the new structure has drawn opposition from different quarters.
“The new structure will impact normal households and residents and I will not allow this to be implemented. I will approach the state government. The decision was not conveyed in the recent board meeting and councillors are also opposed to the decision,” said mayor Sunita Dayal.
Others said the new structure will financially impact households and will also have repercussions in the coming general elections.
“The new structure will increase tax burden by three to five times and the proposal was earlier not approved by the board. The move will impact the common man. Development cannot come at the cost of burdening the common man. This decision will have repercussions in the coming general elections,” said Ajay Sharma, Congress councillor from ward 67 ( Kamla Nehru Nagar/Sanjay Nagar).
