“Instead of sitting over the proposal, the BMC needs to follow it up. I will seek clarity on the process, as the incentives will encourage more housing societies to take up waste segregation and rain harvesting, easing some of the burden on the BMC. The Pune Municipal Corporation, too, has started providing rebate in some of its areas,” Samant said. (Representative Image)
THREE years after a proposal was floated in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to give a 5 per cent property tax rebate to housing societies with rain water harvesting or vermicomposting systems on their premises, a BJP corporator has come up with a similar proposal.
Vile Parle corporator Abhijeet Samant has proposed the rebate for societies practising rain water harvesting or waste segregation. The civic body has claimed that the process of framing a policy to provide such incentives is underway. Last week, raising a point of order in the weekly Standing Committee meeting, Samant sought to know what was the progress on the concept of incentivising eco-friendly measures through property tax rebates.
In a written reply to Samant, the civic body said there are provisions in the BMC Act of 1888 for rebates in property tax for buildings having rainwater harvesting systems, waste segregation and composting. The civic body said it is working on framing a policy for the same.
“Instead of sitting over the proposal, the BMC needs to follow it up. I will seek clarity on the process, as the incentives will encourage more housing societies to take up waste segregation and rain harvesting, easing some of the burden on the BMC. The Pune Municipal Corporation, too, has started providing rebate in some of its areas,” Samant said.
An official from the BMC said the challenges in framing the policy pertain to monitoring whether the rainwater harvesting or composting systems are functional. “A certification of such buildings will need to be done,” said the official. He said: “Waste segregation is anyway compulsory from now on and all societies over 20,000 square metres and those generating over 100 kg of wet waste daily will have to do this in their buildings.”
He added that the BMC had written to the state government on the issue of property tax rebates two years ago but is yet to receive a reply. Meanwhile, residents who installed rainwater harvesting or composting systems in anticipation of a tax incentive are unhappy.
“It is for the BMC to follow up with the state in this matter. Our society has repeatedly applied to the civic body for property tax rebate, but nothing has been done. All the municipal corporations are suppose to provide what they call green incentives,” said Mahesh Athalye, resident of Vijay Nagar Society in Vile Parle. Athalye and other members of the society have also been conducting power point presentations on waste segregation, vermi-composting and rainwater harvesting for societies across the western suburbs.
Another resident of Bandra, Jude Mascarenhas, said societies could be discouraged from taking up such green initiatives if the promised rebate is not extended. “We had applied for tax rebate in 2015, but were denied it as there was no policy. Now, they tell us it has been made compulsory, so no incentives. It was the state government that in a GR asked all municipal corporations to provide property tax rebate to the tune of 2 per cent to 5 per cent,” he said.
For Mumbai, the incentive was first mooted by Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale in 2014. However, in 2015, the then BMC commissioner Sitaram Kunte had written to Shewale saying property tax rebate for such buildings would not be possible because the BMC has not received any directive on the issue from the state government.
Shewale told The Indian Express, “I had written to the then BMC chief Kunte in this matter. The BMC tried its best to provide incentives to the societies, but it could not be implemented. Unless the BMC follows up with the state urban development department and approves a policy on the same, this would never happen.”
Of the 5,304 housing societies (generating 100 kg of wet waste daily or being over 20,000 sq metres) in Mumbai, only 234 have started segregating waste at their level. The BMC has issued notices to 3,084 housing societies and commercial establishments to start segregating and composting wet waste by October 2.
