Gurugram plans cess on property, car registries

GURUGRAM: In the absence of any fixed source of income, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has proposed a slew of revenue generation measures to make itself financially self-reliant. The measures put up for the chief minister’s approval includes a 10% cess on property registrations and a 5% cess on new vehicle registrations in the urban areas under GMDA’s jurisdiction.

Officials said the proposed 10% cess would be charged as per the value of the property. According to the GMDA officials, Section 42 (1) of the GMDA Act allows the state government on recommendation of the authority to levy a cess on property or vehicles. “As per the Act, this amount shall be collected by the MCG/ULB (urban local bodies) for onward remittance to GMDA,” said a copy of the official agenda accessed by TOI.

While interacting with the media after the meeting on Tuesday, Khattar had said, “As per the figures presented in the meeting, GMDA is facing a loss of around Rs 300 crore. We are looking at alternative revenue generation measures so that the authority can take up more development projects.”

Besides the cess on property, a proposal for cess on registration of new vehicles has also been proposed to the chief minister. “It is proposed that a cess of 5% may be levied on the registration of new vehicles in the GMDA area. Also, at least 50% of road tax collected by the transport department from the GMDA notified area should be remitted annually to GMDA for road infrastructure work,” said the meeting agenda. The metropolitan authority has already started leasing land to liquor vends, , which has generated substantial revenue for this financial year. It has further been proposed that GMDA’s assets such as parts of green belts may be leased for petrol pumps, nurseries and other conforming uses.

The plan for the levy of cess on property and vehicles had been in the pipeline since the formation of the metropolitan authority.

However, GMDA did not want to levy these taxes until it had done substantial development work to justify these taxes in the city. While the extent of development done by GMDA is debatable, the metropolitan authority is in dire need of funds.

In the past as well, efforts were made to find revenue generating sources. It was in this regard that the chief minister had last year approved that the stamp duty charges be split between MCG and GMDA at 1% each. Earlier the entire 2% stamp duty charges went to MCG. While MCG councillors, including the Mayor, had objected to the proposal, the CM had approved it at a GMDA meeting last year.

Subsequently, the ULB department had rejected the proposal. But Khattar had persisted on the proposal “even if it requires an amendment to the urban local bodies act”.