Gugugram civic body's property tax collection hit due to Covid-19

Gugugram civic body’s property tax collection hit due to Covid-19

GURUGRAM: The Covid-induced lockdown has caused a major dent in MCG’s revenues — it,has not been able to generate even 1% of its projected revenue for this fiscal in the first quarter. Though the city’s infrastructure projects have got delayed due to the lockdown, officials said, this “temporary revenue loss” will not have any major impact on the civic body’s preparations for the upcoming monsoon.

In its budget, the civic body has pegged the revenue generation for 2020-21 at Rs 3,800 crore, including Rs 1,900 crore through stamp duty, Rs 1,100 crore as property tax and Rs 340 crore as recovery from private colonies. But MCG has been able to mop up only Rs 21 crore in the last three months (April to June) from property tax collections, and water and sewerage charges.

As per MCG records, the civic body received Rs 9.41 lakh, Rs 3.32 lakh and Rs 18.33 crore in the months of April, May and June, respectively, as property tax. Similarly the revenue received from water and sewerage charges in first quarter is Rs 2.98 crore.

However, the civic body has not been able to generate any revenue from other major sources, including purchasable FAR, advertisement tax, stamp duty, excise share, municipal tax and recovery from private colonies. MCG is already struggling to recover property tax arrears of Rs 880 crore and stamp duty dues of Rs 1,500 crore.

commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh told TOI that the temporary revenue loss due to the Covid-19 lockdown would not have much impact on maintenance and other civic activities in the city. “The city’s infrastructure projects got slightly delayed due to lack of funds. But at this time, the key focus is on pre-monsoon preparations like desilting of drains, repair of roads, checking the functionality of rainwater harvesting systems across the city. These are being done on priority basis to ensure there is no inconvenience to residents,” he said.

Singh also the civic body’s major share of revenue like stamp duty comes from the state government. “It has got delayed and will come as and when the state government plans to release the funds. Moreover, we have announced property tax rebate scheme, which is expected to boost the revenue and around Rs 600 crore is expected. Some other measures will also be taken soon to generate revenue,” he said.

In order to recover revenue and encourage public to deposit property tax, the MCG also issued an order stating that property owners who deposit tax by July 31 will get a rebate of 30%. “Residents welfare associations which have more than 500 properties under their jurisdiction will be given 5% of the total property tax deposited for cleanliness, waste segregation and composting plant, if more than 80% of property owners deposit tax,” Singh added.

However, a senior MCG official said many of the projects envisioned in the corporation budget could not be implemented due to the massive fall in revenue. “Some losses are of permanent nature like revenue through renting out corporation assets such as shops, community centers and auditoriums for private programmes, parking charges and others,” he said.

“The temporary losses in terms of property tax, purchasable FAR and advertisement fees can be recovered once the restrictions are entirely lifted, but till then the corporation will face shortage of funds,” he added.