DEHRADUN: Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) failed to collect expected amount of revenue from house tax in city.
DMC has collected house tax from only 9,000 houses out of the 60,000 houses of 21 outer wards. These are those wards which were already present in DMC but after the addition of some additional areas, now comprise the outer wards.
DMC officials claimed that as many as 12 inspectors have been sent out to different wards each day for distributing nearly 2,000 to 3,000 forms a day. Most of the inspectors responsible for these wards say they are in the process of distributing the forms and apprising householder they amount they have to pay and how.
But at ground reality, the story is different. is not the reality. Residents say they are not aware about the house tax.
The DMC, on its part, is claiming that it had conducted more than 20 camps in different localities in all the wards to spread awareness among people about the need for depositing their house tax. However, most people are not even aware about the camps being held by DMC. “My colony’s people were never told about any such camp. Things relating to DMC happens in a very minuscule level although, it should be done in a major way when they know it affects everyone in society,” said Maya Kumari, a resident of Ajabpur.
“Only 20% residents of Ajabpur, Deepnagar, Kaulagarh, Turner Road and Brahamapuri wards have paid house tax, whereas 90% residents of Vasant Vihar, Mata Mandir, Adhoiwala, Indira Nagar have paid house tax. Those who fail to pay the house tax will be charged surplus for the delay,” said Rajesh Naithani, tax suprintendent, DMC.
DMC officials say that residents of some of the wards have failed to give importance to this responsible of paying the tax and underestimating the need and urgency of the matter. However, DMC is giving top priority to the matter.
Accepting the failure in collecting house tax from people within stipulated timeframe, mayor Vinod Chamoli warned that a heavy penalty would be levied on those who fail to submit house tax before March 31. DMC’s tax inspectors would go to their homes to levy the fine. The DMC, he said, had records of all the houses where its inspectors had gone when they went door-to-door to distribute house tax forms and on its basis, irresponsible denizens would be taken to task, he said.
The worst fact is, the DMC has recorded only Rs 35 lakh as revenue generated through house tax till date whereas actual figures is way higher than this. When asked about the actual figure, a data entry official refrained from disclosing the sum, saying, “I will not be able to share the revenue figure of 9,000 houses with you as we are still in the process of feeding the data into the system,”
