Villagers under the Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) will take out a protest march on March 11 from Kharghar to Panvel against the collection of property tax by the corporation. The villagers are opposing the exorbitant high rate of property tax slabs for villagers and have showed their inability to pay.
Under the aegis of 95 NAINA villages and other PAPs, villagers from 29 villages under the PMC will take out the protest march.
In the first week of February 2022, representatives of villagers had warned to take out a long march from Kharghar to the civic headquarter if the tax collection proposal is not withdrawn.
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 arrears. The PMC was formed in 2016 and the civic general body had cleared a proposal of property tax collection. However, the civic body decided to collect it, since it came into existence.
As villagers were earlier paying property tax to Gram Panchayat and now its transferred under the civic body, the rate of taxes have been changed. Advocate Suresh Thakur, a senior member of NAINA and Other PAPs Committee said that they met the deputy municipal commissioner and submitted their demand.
He said that the property tax rate is quite high and many villagers cannot pay with the arrears. “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 60 years lease. The actual owner of the land is CIDCO. So, the civic body should collect taxes from CIDCO,” claimed Thakur.
Thakur said that they are holding meetings in different villages to understand the situation. He claimed that the earnings of villagers dried up during the pandemic and now they are not in a position to pay taxes. The civic body is facing resistance in the collection of property tax.
Even residents of Kharghar had opposed the dual and retrospective tax collection. Meanwhile, the civic body offered rebates and collected tax last year.
