4 New Bmc Wards To Come Under Property Tax Regime From Next Yr, ET RealEstate
KOLKATA: Residents of four wards in the outskirts of Salt Lake who currently pay ‘khajna’ or land revenue to the local panchayat or BLRO office will have to pay property tax to Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) from April 1, 2024. They will also be able to get mutation done.
Residents though complain that while they will have to pay higher tax, the civic services are nowhere near what is available in rest of Bidhannagar. Till now, residents in wards 27, 28, 35 and 36, consisting of Mahishbathan, Nayapatti and a vast bheri area off EM Bypass are not under the ambit of property tax.
These localities were added areas under the erstwhile Bidhannagar municipality and were included in separate wards after the municipality was upgraded into a corporation in 2015.
“This is much needed. Though residing within a municipal corporation area, these areas are still under developed. We hope that services will improve once we start paying property tax,” said a resident of Nayapatti.
Civic officials said the four wards will have a property tax structure similar to Rajarhat-Gopalpur. Till now, residents of Salt Lake and Rajarhat areas pay their property tax based on two different and old tax structures. The tax valuation for Salt Lake was last assessed in 1997 and that of Rajarhat-Gopalpur in 2005. BMC had asked the state valuation board to come up with a uniform property tax structure for all the 41 wards of BMC.
According to a BMC notice, civic authorities are to start sending tax bills for the 3rd and 4th quarters from next week and have also deferred collecting 10% penalty and 10% simple interest payable on arrear property tax which was supposed to be in effect from October 1.
Officials said property tax payment and collection for the first and second quarter has been stopped on and from September 30 as authorities are generating property tax bills for the third and fourth quarter of this financial year.
The tax bills which will be sent to households soon will show all four quarters of property tax demand for the ongoing financial year.
For BMC wards 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40 and 41 in Salt Lake, the offline demand notice for the financial year 2023-24 will be available from third week of October. Taxpayers residing in these wards, will be able to pay tax online from October 13.
