Mohali MC proposes 25% increase in property tax

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, February 6

The Mohali Municipal Corporation (MC) has proposed to increase property tax rates for the 2020-21 fiscal by 25 per cent.

The property tax for the 2020-21 fiscal year has been proposed to increase by Rs 5 crore at estimated collection of Rs 30 crore, which during the 2019-20 fiscal was decreased by Rs 2.5 crore at Rs 25 crore.

In 2018-19, the property tax income was estimated at Rs 19 crore, but was revised to Rs 27.5 crore with a slight hike of Rs 2 crore from the previous Budget of 2017-18 estimated at Rs 17 crore.

The annual Budget worth Rs 133.8 crore for the 2020-21 fiscal has been proposed, which will come up for approval during the special Budget House meet slated for the second week of February.

In 2019-20, the MC had proposed Rs 22.2 crore deficit Budget and in 2018, it had passed Rs 128 crore annual Budget showing Rs 15 crore deficit for the 2018-19 fiscal. The House had passed Rs 128.17 crore expenditure against the income of Rs 112.93 crore. Later, the civic body managed to reduce the deficit to half by increasing the income to Rs 117.02 crore and reducing the expenditure to Rs 124.87 from the proposed Rs 128.17 and decreasing the deficit to Rs 7.85 crore from the proposed Rs 15 crore. In 2017, the MC had passed the annual Budget with estimated expenditure of Rs 138.50 crore against projected income of 117.50 crore for the 2017-18 fiscal, making it a deficit of Rs 21 crore.

MC Commissioner Kamal Kumar Garg said they would focus on balancing the fiscal deficit by increasing the collection from various factors such as building application fee, licence fee and tehbazari.

Unlike last year, the MC had proposed to increase income from advertisement from Rs 11 crore to Rs 12 crore, thus showing an increase of Rs 1 crore. According to the Mayor, tax on advertisement can be increased or decreased by the House at any time.

Similarly, the building application fee has been proposed at Rs 70 lakh, Rs 40 lakh surplus as compared to the last fiscal of Rs 30 lakh, and the licence fee income of Rs 40 lakh generated during the last fiscal is now proposed at Rs 45 lakh. The additional excise duty has been decreased to Rs 3 crore from Rs 8 crore in 2019-20, rent and tehbazari fee income worth Rs 60 lakh, advertisement tax revenue of around Rs 12 crore, water supply and sewerage income generation has not been revised and proposed similar to the last fiscal of Rs 1.30 crore.