ROURKELA: Even as Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Tuesday started reassessment of Annual Rental Value (ARV) of property for fixation of fresh holding tax rates and augment its tax revenue net, the move has not gone down well with many.
The RMC has outsourced the survey work to Technology Services Pvt Ltd. Its valuation team on Tuesday began survey at Koelnagar here. On June 21, the RMC, citing provisions of Odisha Municipality Act, had issued notification stating that valuation teams would survey and measure premises of government and non-government organisations, residential and commercial buildings and vacant land. The survey teams would also gather information about use of land and property to work out ARV leading to fixation of holding tax rates on case to case basis.
Protesting it, convener of Rourkela Juba Jagriti Manch Gopal Jena said the RMC authorities are ignorant of the provision of laws. He claimed under Section 137 of Odisha Municipality Act, the RMC has no power to arbitrarily fix new holding tax rates without consent of people at a time when the civic body does not have an elected council for four years.
Former Congress MLA Pravat Mohapatra echoed similar views. RMC administrator Monisha Banerjee would be impressed upon to withdraw the decision, he said, adding that the RMC has miserably failed to provide better services, be it sanitation, good roads or street lighting and it has no right to impose higher tax on the residents.
However, RMC Commissioner AK Mallick said around 90 per cent of the city’s population would benefit from the move while only those evading tax and using property for commercial and rental purposes without paying anything to the government would be included in the tax net.
He said there are about 70,000 households under RMC jurisdiction, but only 16,500 are holding tax payers. The RMC’s target is to double holding tax revenue from `4 crore. He said those not agreeing to new rates would be given opportunity to raise objections.