Residents of the state capital would have to continue paying high taxes for their properties, as the civic body board on Tuesday rejected the proposal raised by some councillors to reduce the charge.
On October 29 last year, the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) board had given its nod for nearly doubling the annual rental value. The holding tax is calculated on the annual rental value.
Though no date had been mentioned, the civic body issued a public notice on March 30 this year, declaring April 1 as the effective date for the implementation of the new rate.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, a section of the councillors protested against the hike.
Councillor from ward number 2, Dipak Chaurasiya, said: “Under the existing categorisation, there are only three types of roads. The hike in the holding tax, however, has assumed that there would be four categories of roads. For this, a fresh survey was proposed. No such survey has been conducted till date. So, on what grounds would the new rates be implemented?” He added that people would have to pay extra taxes because of the hike. But the protest failed to garner a consensus and was rejected.
“The chairman of the board, the mayor and the commissioner said a fresh survey could be conducted for the categorisation of the roads would be completed at the earliest,” said Chandrashekhar Azad, the PMC municipal secretary.
He added: “Since the move to hike the holding tax was taken according to the instruction of our parent department — urban development and housing — it was necessary to implement it from the stipulated date.”
The annual rental value (ARV) for different category of houses on three kinds of streets — principal main road, main road and other roads — in the city has been raised. It naturally increases the holding tax (fixed at 9 per cent).
For instance, if the existing ARV of a building were Rs 54 per sqft, it would now be Rs 108 per sqft. Assuming that the house is spread over 100 sqft, the new holding tax amount payable would be Rs 972.
The board adopted Grant of Permission for Display of Advertisement and Similar Devices Rate Regulation, 2012 that prescribes new rates for hoardings, billboards and similar devices and approved the development of the PMC circle office at Kankerbagh for an estimated Rs 51 lakh.
