12% penalty for late payment of house tax in Ghaziabad

GHAZIABAD: The Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation on Thursday cleared a proposal to impose a penalty of 12% on those defaulting on payment of house

tax

. The proposal was cleared at the board meeting of the civic body and comes into force with immediate effect.


The municipal corporation will however continue to offer rebates on timely payment of the

house

tax, as is the practice in the city. Officials of the municipal corporation said the penalty on house tax has been introduced as per rules framed by the state government.

“The UP Nagar Nigam Adhiniyam of 1959, which governs the functioning of the municipal corporation, contains provisions to impose penalties for late payment of house tax. The corporation has been suffering huge revenue losses because several property owners have been sitting on house tax dues for years altogether. Penalties will act as a deterrent to delays in clearance of house tax. The revenue thus collected can be pumped into various

infrastructure

works in the city,” said additional municipal commissioner Pramod Kumar. The municipal corporation collects house tax from all areas in the city including Indirapuram which is still under the maintenance of Ghaziabad Development Authority. The corporation offers a rebate of 20% to current house tax paid within August of each financial year. The rebate decreases by 5% each subsequent month. Anyone paying current taxes after November is not offered any rebate. According to officials, a 12% penalty will be calculated on all pending house taxes till date even before the current financial year.

The board of the civic body cleared as many as 60 proposals during the meeting, several of which pertained to construction of small stretches of roads and drains within certain wards.

An amount of approximately Rs 49 lakh was also cleared by the board for streetlighting of the alternative road – from Vasundhara Enclave in Sikanderpur to the proposed civilian terminal at the Hindon Air Force Station – which will be constructed by the public works department. Work on streetlighting this road will be undertaken in two parts for which a budget of Rs 25.72 lakh and Rs 23.21 lakh have been sanctioned separately by the board.