Many government buildings and departments owe the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), whose major revenue source is property tax, a lot of pending service charges.
As per the earlier Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, and the more recent BBMP Act, 2020, the civic body is liable to collect 25% of the property tax, known as service charge, from government buildings and departments.
Ironically, many citizens have received notices from the civic body asking them to remit property tax dues owing to wrong zonal classification despite having paid property tax diligently. They are now outraged and seek to know what action the civic body is taking against the defaulters.
Activist H. Pramod recently filed an RTI application seeking information about the dues of government buildings. In response, the BBMP’s Vasanthnagar sub-division officials have listed out 110 buildings owned by both the Union and the State governments. While a handful of these have paid the service charges up to 2021-22, there are several that have huge outstanding dues.
For instance, three buildings belonging to the Income Tax Department owe BBMP ₹2.39 lakh, the HAL office on Cubbon Road owes ₹17.07 lakh, the BWSSB office on K.G. Road owes ₹ 3.89 lakh, and the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development, also on K.G. Road, owes ₹4.84 lakh.
Mr. Pramod told The Hindu that while the BBMP was penalising citizens who have been judiciously paying their taxes, meagre attempts were made to recover dues from these government departments and bodies.
Concurring, Srikanth Narasimhan, co-founder and general secretary of the Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party (BNP), said: “This is the classic case of the civic body hounding citizens who have paid taxes and letting go others who have huge outstanding dues, amounting to several crores totally,” he said and added that the civic body should focus on defaulters to mop up more revenue.
R. Ramesh, MLC and former Mayor, questioned the legality of the notices already issued. The notices were dated February 2021, but were served only in July 2021. While the notices were issued under provisions of the KMC Act, 1976, the new BBMP Act, 2020, came into effect from April itself. That apart, the civic body claims that the pending tax is from 2016-17. “However, as per the KMC Act, the civic body can issue notices only for three years. In this instance, notices are being served after five years!,” he charged.
BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, however, said that both actions – issuing notices to citizens and collecting pending service charges from government bodies – were important. He said the civic body had already issued notices to government departments and buildings that had not yet cleared their dues. “The approach to both issues are different. We understand that government departments may have not paid due to incurring expenses or delay in allocation release. Civic officials are working on collecting the dues,” he said.
He also said that several representations have come from various citizens and civil society groups on notices issued for filing tax under wrong zonal classification. While claiming that no coercive action is being taken apart from issue of notices, the BBMP was also checking on the extent to which the citizens’ claims were true.
