Mumbai: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has demanded that ex-servicemen, officers who have won gallantry medals and widows of ex-servicemen should be exempted from paying property taxes.
Earlier in 2016, the then BJP government in Maharashtra had proposed a resolution - 'Balasaheb Thackeray Ex-serviceman Honor Scheme' for waiving property tax for ex-serviceman residing in Maharashtra. The proposal of its implementation was tabled during the standing committee meeting back in June 2017.
According to the BMC rules, tax headers like general tax, water tax, sewerage tax, municipal education cess, trees cess are included under overall property tax. The general tax is calculated based on the area owned by the property owner.
However, instead of exempting the property tax completely, the committee passed the proposal saying that the servicemen will be exempted from paying only the general property tax.
A city-based ex-servicemen filed a writ petition seeking complete exemption of the property tax.
The Bombay High Court's ruling on July 31 had ordered that property tax for ex-servicemen should be waived off entirely and the resolution passed by the standing committee in 2017 is illegal.
"The proposal was tabled for discussion last week but it was not taken during the meeting as we proposed that a discussion on this topic is necessary before implementing it finally," said Bhalchandra Shirsat, senior BJP corporator and spokesperson of the party in BMC.
"The proposal is due for discussion on Wednesday and we will ensure that it gets implemented. If the BMC administration delays its implementation then it will be a contempt and we will approach the high court yet again," Shirsat said.
