Rajasthan Expects To Mop Up Rs 100 Cr Via New Tax

The Rajasthan government expects to mop up Rs 100 crore through a newly announced urban development tax. Over 5 million properties will come under the purview of the tax. The survey work is going on and final number of properties falling under the the ambit of tax would only be known once the exercise is completed. Sources said around Rs 200 crore used to be collected when house tax was in place but now this figure would come down to around Rs 100 crore as properties coming under the new tax regime were fewer. It may be mentioned here that few days back the state government had announced the imposition of new tax as an alternative to house tax, which was abolished earlier in January this year. Abolition of house tax was one of the promises made in the Bharatiya Janata Party manifesto released at the time of the Assembly elections in 2003. Over 30 per cent of the properties located in the state fall under the purview of the new tax regime. It may be mentioned here that the Congress has decided to oppose any move to impose this tax.

According to the new tax proposal, the government now plans to impose the tax on residential plots of or over 2,700 sq ft, flats of over 1,500 sq ft and for commercial complexes it would be 900 sq ft or more. The tax would be calculated on the basis of local district level committee (DLC) rates that would be divided by 2,000 to arrive at the tax figure. Meanwhile, the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) has decided to recover the house tax dues from the defaulters. Sources in the JMC said against a target to collect house tax of Rs 5 crore, the JMC has been able to collect only around Rs 35-40 lakhs till the end of September. JMC in its budget for 2007-08 had kept a provision of garnering Rs 5 crore of house tax. However, because of lack of interest the collection till the end of September was way below the target.