Navi Mumbai: MVA to take a call on mega protest against PMC’s property tax collection on March 2

While the matter of collection of property tax by the Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) is at the High Court, political parties do not want to lose the opportunity to encash common citizens' issues as the local body election is likely to happen this year. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) will hold a meeting on March 2, 2023, to plan a protest against the retrospective collection by the corporation.

𝗢𝗽𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗺𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝘅

Former MLC Balaram Patil and former leader of the opposition at PMC will be present in the meeting. The plan is to put pressure on the local and state governments to rationalize tax and collect property tax after a proposal was cleared by the general body.

𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝘅, 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗖𝗜𝗗𝗖𝗢 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗿

Residents have been opposing the proposed property tax collection by the PMC administration as they say it is not fair. They say that they were already paying service charges to CIDCO even though the corporation was already formed. CIDCO stopped the collection of service charges in November 2022. Now, the civic body is asking to pay retrospective property tax.

The PMC was formed in 2016 and a proposal to collect property tax was passed in January 2019. Now citizens say that the civic body should collect tax when a proposal has been passed, not when the corporation was formed.

𝗩𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝘅 𝗯𝘆 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆

Apart from the urban areas, villagers from at least 23 villages under the PMC have also opposed the collection of property tax by the civic body.

Villagers alleged that the rate of property tax has increased five times from what they were paying to the Gram Panchayat. Now, many villagers are not in a position to pay property taxes with five years of arrears.

As villagers were earlier paying property tax to Gram Panchayat and now coming under the civic body, the rate of taxes changed. Advocate Suresh Thakur, a senior member of NAINA, said they are meeting with the principal secretary to put their side.

“Villagers received developed land after surrendering their agricultural land to CIDCO. Now, the owner of the land is CIDCO and villagers possess the land on a 60 years lease. The actual owner of the land is CIDCO. So, the civic body should collect taxes from CIDCO,” claimed Thakur.

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