Slum dwellers have to pay property tax

From April onwards, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will start levying property tax on all slums. To be implemented on the lines of Ahmedabad city, the civic body has decided to charge a lump sum amount on slum dwellers as property tax, not the capital value based charges, which are slapped on other properties.

According to civic officials, the BMC till 2006-07 used to charge property tax on authorised slum dwellers in the form of service charges. Accordingly, Rs 100 and Rs 250 charges were collected from residential and non-residential slum dwellers, respectively.

Though city slums are presently not charged any taxes by the civic body, the civic chief in his budgetary speech for 2015-16 had hinted at charging slum dwellers property tax.

“As octroi is likely to be abolished in the near future, the civic body needs to find new sources of revenue. Under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) guidelines too, it is necessary to charge taxes on maximum properties. Due to this, slums existing on the government and private land needs to be charged with property tax,” said a senior civic official.

In Mumbai, more than 50 per cent of the population resides in slums. The BMC had appointed a committee under financial expert Abhay Pethe to study the assessment and collection of taxes from slums.

“The civic body has started implementation of capital value-based property tax system, which is based on ready reckoner rates, from April 2010. However, taking into account the high rates of ready reckoner, it will be a huge burden on slum dwellers. Hence it has been decided that a lump sum amount be charged as property tax. After getting the approval from civic law committee, the proposal will be sent to the state government,” said Sanjay Kabre, assistant municipal commissioner (assessment and collection).