At a time when political parties in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is at loggerheads on property tax row, Ravi Raja - senior Congress corporator and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the BMC on Tuesday alleged that the BMC administration has turned a blind eye to property tax theft committed by a Worli based real estate firm for ten years.
"The firm has a total area of 12,000 Square meter, however, according to the documents that I have examined, this firm has been paying property taxes for only 1,900 square meter area," Raja told FPJ.
"This is going on since the past ten years and by doing this the real estate firm has duped the civic administration worth crores of rupees, the authorities must have also entertained the culprits and they need to answer as in why this was hidden from the books for so long," he added.
He further mentioned that this has become a regular affair in the entire G South ward which covers areas like - Worli, Lower Parel and Prabhadevi.
Since the last one year, Raja had been asking the civic administration to waive off the property tax charges in apartments less than 500 Square feet. Raja's demand has received support from opposition leaders across party lines.
"The Shiv Sena in 2017 promised that they will waive off property tax however it has not been done yet, meanwhile at a time when Mumbaikars have faced so much financial crisis, above that the BMC has added a 2 percent penalty on those delaying to pay the taxes," said Raja.
When FPJ tried to contact the ward officer of G South, he remained unavailable for comments.
Meanwhile, an official of the assessment and collection department of BMC said that an enquiry could be initiated on the matter only if the civic administration gives the authority.
