BENGALURU: The bE Development Authority (BDA) is in the process of fixing the betterment tax to be levied for its new layouts — the Dr Shivaram Karanth Layout and the Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout. However, it has come to light that the authority has fared dismally in the collection of this one-time tax from house or site owners.
The tax is levied on properties in the vicinity of any BDA layout or portions inside its layout which has not been acquired for the formation of the layout. It is aimed at offering some form of revenue for the BDA as the value of all properties shoots up due to infrastructure like roads, drainage, drinking water supply and parks created by the BDA for the layout.
BDA has levied the betterment tax on 21 out of its 64 layouts since April 2011, a senior official said. “The authority should have got anywhere between Rs 500 crore and Rs 600 crore so far through this tax. The realisation of revenue by this mode has been extremely poor as only between 2 per cent and 3 per cent of owners have paid,” he said. BDA is permitted to levy interest on the amount when owners finally pay under the BDA Act, the official added.
Undeterred by the poor track record, the authority is working on fixing the betterment tax for NPKL formed in 2016 and Karanth Layout readied in 2023. “We aim to realise around Rs 750 cr from the Dr Shivaram Karanth Layout. The rates to be fixed are being worked out,” said another official.
There is a specific complication in connection with these two layouts as this tax is fixed by the government as one-third of the difference in the property cost as specified by the sub-registrar office after the development of the layout versus the previous rate in the area, a source said. “In these two layouts, a differential pricing is being adopted for the sale of the sites within the layout itself which is dependent on the dimensions of the sites. It used to be a uniform rate across sites in the BDA layouts in the past,” he explained.