SMC extends deadline for property tax

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, July 1

After collecting Rs 5.23 crore property tax till yesterday, the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) had extended the deadline to deposit the tax, that expired on Tuesday, for a month. The residents, mainly in the wards which were merged in the corporation, have refused to pay the tax and demanded regular water and electricity connections and exclusion from the municipal limits.

Local units of CPM, the Congress and the BJP have come forward to join the anti-property tax chorus raised by residents under the banner of the Up-Nagriya Kalyan Samanya Samiti (UNKSS).

The BJP, the Congress, CPM- are engaged in a blame game after the UNKSS questioned the parties’ stand on property tax in wards of the merged areas. The parties had promised in their elections manifestos to regularise the houses and provide civic amenities in the five wards merged in the SMC but nothing has been done so far, residents resented.

Govind Chitranta, secretary of the samiti, and Bhupinder Kanwar, its vice-president, said the parties should declare their stand on the property tax issue in the merged areas of the city. “The residents in these areas have limited facilities and pay commercial charges for basic amnesties as the government has failed to regularise their houses while farmers in the areas can not even build cowsheds,” they added.

The Congress unit of Kasumpati has decided that the residents in the merged areas would not pay property tax till the government gives them relief. So is the stand of Kasumpati CPM unit, which has been demanding exclusion of the areas from the SMC.

Municipal commissioner Pankaj Rai said the date for collecting property tax had been extended for another month for the benefit of public. “We have collected tax worth Rs 5.23 crore and residents in the merged areas are also paying the tax”.

Rai said they have addressed the problems of the people in merged areas. The 52-km road has been tarred, street lights are being installed, domestic water and electricity connections in the areas are being sanctioned by the government, he added.