Chandigarh, June 22: The Chandigarh municipal corporation has proposed an idea of single bill for water and electricity charges, along with the property tax, in its draft policy on its financial crisis. It will be put up for discussion during the House meeting on June 29.
At present, separate bills are generated for water and electricity charges and residents have to pay property tax for the entire year within first two months of fiscal year (April 1 to May 31).
“This proposal is doable with close coordination of the Chandigarh administration,” said MC additional commissioner Anil Garg, who is among the officials involved in preparing draft policy.
He said that MC incurs nearly Rs 12 per bill to generate it and expenses will be more or less same for electricity bills too. We have more than 1.5 lakh commercial and residential units in the city. “A single bill will not only prune operational expenses but also increase internal working efficiency,” he said.
Garg added that consumers will benefit from the move. At present the periodicity of these three different bills are different. “If these are clubbed under a single platform, it will reduce peoples’ hassle in going to e-sampark centres time and again to deposit different bills,” he said.
Asked how it will be done, he said, first the proposal needs to be approved by the House, after which it will go to Chandigarh administration where the framework is required to be prepared in coordination with the MC.
While there will not be much of problem in clubbing electricity and water bills, MC needs to make administrative revision in recovery of property tax, which is taken in advance from the assesses..
“It can be converted to bimonthly or quarterly in order to club it with other two bills,” said Garg.
The draft also proposes commerical property tax on paying guests and rental properties. It suggests that city has nearly 45% houses that are involved in either fixed rental or hiring paying guests.
They should be charged property tax equivalent to what is being charged from commerical properties, it states. At present, all houses pay same property tax, which is much less than what is paid by the commerical institutions.It proposes immediate survey to identify all such assesses in the town.
Source Hindustan Times
