PMC to consider alternate documents instead of sale deed for property tax

This year the Pune Municipal Corporation has set a target of collecting Rs.1862 crores by the way of Property tax. This target can be achieved if the civic body is able to cover villages under the tax ambit. For this the PMC is planning to do away with the mandatory property sale deed and consider alternate documents so that it becomes easy to cover the properties in the merged villages under the tax ambit

The State government has planned to include more than 34 villages in the tax ambit. Recently Uruli Kancha and Phursungi have been included completely while there are 9 other villages have been included partially under the tax ambit. A lot of development has been done in the Gaothan areas which are now included in the PMC limits. Owners of these properties have been staying here for more than 50 years and so there is no question of having the sale deed. For convenience PMC is planning to use alternate documents such as Voter ID, Electricity bill etc. to register these luxury real estate properties with the PMC and cover them in the tax ambit. This move will provide a great relief to the owners of the old properties in these areas where the people have been staying for generations together and they do not have any sale deed or property deed.

In Pune there are around 8.3 lakh properties which are taxable. Out of these more than 80000 properties are in the Gaothan areas which have been included in the PMC limits after the merger. The tax on the residential property in India is determined on the Annual Rateable Value (ARV). These values once decided do not change. The ancient NRI properties can also be covered in the tax ambit on the basis of these reformative measures only and thus the tax collection could be increased to a great extent through these measures a lot of relief can be received.

According to the chairman of the committee, Yogesh Mulik, the idea of considering alternative documents for the registration of the property has been placed in front of the civic administration body. Their opinion would be required before finalising the future course of action. The call will be taken once their report is received by the committee. If the said proposal is approved it will not only ease the process of registration for the public but would also increase the revenue collection to a great extent which is till now not possible because of the lack of documents. The alternative documents will aid both the owners as well as the civic bodies and it will be a win-win situation for all. The residents will not be pressurised for the legal documents while the PMC will be able to achieve their targets easily by collecting the tax from these properties.