Illegal paying guest units in Shimla under scrutiny

Navneet Rathore

Shimla, June 29

The Shimla Municipal Corporation (MC) has decided to crack down on unregistered and illegal paying guest (PG) accommodations, which are being run across the town and are evading commercial tax.

As per the Municipal Corporation, several persons are running PG accommodations from their residences in an illegal manner and are not paying tax for commercial property and water to the corporation.

There are hundreds of PG owners, who are charging exorbitant amount of rent from tenants and evading tax by not applying for commercial property and commercial water supply connections. These PG owners are paying property tax and water and garbage charges at domestic rates while running commercial activities.

The Municipal Corporation will soon start a process to identify such PGs. After the identification, the MC plans fine defaulting PG owners, besides collecting commercial property tax as well as water, garbage collection charges and electricity bills at commercial rates.

Shimla Municipal Corporation Mayor Surender Chauhan said many people were illegally running PGs in the town. “The PG owners have to follow certain rules and regulations and also have to get the permission to run their facilities from the Municipal Corporation. The MC will soon start the process to identify unregistered and illegal PGs and will take action accordingly,” he said.

The matter was highlighted in the recent monthly meeting of the Municipal Corporation by Kangna Dhar Councillor Ram Rattan who said most of the PGs running across the town were unregistered and not paying commercial property tax and water tax.

He also said these PG owners were spoiling the beauty of the town by pasting posters in walls, rain shelters and water purifiers, to which the Municipal Commissioner Bhupinder Attri replied that there is a need to challan such PG owners.