In a relief to residents, Mayor says no to House tax increase

PRAYAGRAJ, April 6 (HS): With Covid-19 pandemic still seeing thousands of people reeling in financial crisis, the Prayagraj Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided against increasing the house tax this financial year, said Mayor Abhilasha Gupta on Monday while rolling back the implementation of recommendations of a committee that had sought 75 per cent increase in house tax.

She stressed upon the importance of not raising the tax keeping the Covid crisis in mind. “Covid-19 has hit the economy and the citizens hard. Many citizens have lost their jobs and some had to take big salary cuts. In view of this, we told the municipal commissioner not to hike the property tax,” the mayor said. “We were getting lots of complaints regarding exorbitant hikes in taxes, so we have decided to roll back the recommendations for this year. We will increase taxes for this category next year after studying factors used and in no way the proposed hike would go beyond 35 per cent. “Tax hike is unwarranted, especially at the times of Covid-19 crisis,” she said. She stated that the bureaucrats ignored public representatives and arbitrarily proposed hike in house tax and users charges.

She further said it is time to provide relief in municipal services to people during Covid-19 crisis. “I will talk the chief minister and request him to provide some relief to tax payers,” she added.

Meanwhile, corporation officials, however, said this decision would lead to losses worth crores of rupees for the cash-strapped civic body.