BENGALURU: Due to a goof-up by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in May this year, over 400 Arkavathy Layout allottees ended up paying property tax for their sites which had been denotified years ago.Though the BDA later realised its mistake and urged the allottees not to pay up, the money of those who dutifully rushed to pay their tax has been stuck with the BDA with no sign of reimbursement in sight.
The allottees paid amounts ranging between Rs 1,200 and Rs 11,000 depending on the dimensions of their site. The demand draft tax challans for the year 2017-2018 were sent by BDA individually to allottees. “Later realising its mistake, BDA wrote to both Corporation Bank and Canara Bank not to collect the draft from denotified site owners and clarified the same through the media,” recalls Nandeesh, a tax payer.
Subbarayalu Naidu C was among those who paid the tax. “I paid about Rs11,290 towards property tax on June 14. Till today, I have not heard anything about it from BDA.”For the last three years, Naidu did not get any tax notification from BDA. “I was asked to pay Rs 331.64 as fine for non-payment of property tax for the past years,” he added.
Nandeesh had paid Rs 2,200 for his 40x60 site in Sanagehalli while A Krishnamurthy, a retired BEML employee, had paid Rs 3,077 for his 30x40 site in Arkavathy Layout Second Block. The list continues.
Meanwhile, BDA seems to have no separate tax records pertaining to the denotified group. A top official at the head office told Express to contact the BDA Revenue Office in RT Nagar. The officer there said the statistics could be got only from the EDP cell of the head office. A staffer in the cell said, “We do not have such individual records of denotified allottees. Data on Arkavathy allottees of denotified and regular sites can be provided but we need time to give it.”
A top BDA official said, “Yes, we made a big mistake and we rectified it too. We are now contemplating paying back the money collected as property tax from denotified allottees.” Another official dared to blame the allottees for paying the tax and said, “These allottees know their sites have been denotified. Who asked them to pay the taxes for a property which is officially not theirs anymore? Maybe, they think they can get back their sites by paying this tax.”
Weekly grievance meet cancelled
The regular public grievance meet held between 3pm and 5pm every Wednesday was abruptly cancelled with no prior intimation. “This meet offers a chance for the public to meet all the top bosses at one place and present their problems. The BDA needs to inform us when it does not take place and offer an explanation for it,” said an Arkavathy allottee. An official said, “Top BDA officials had other commitments and so could not make it today.”