Bhubaneswar: Illegality in paying holdings is a punishable under Municipal Corporation Act.
Instances of illegality have come into the notice of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and primary actions have been initiated.
Holding being a primary source of revenue is being assessed regularly by the authority. During the investigation it has come into the notice in the North Zone area of BMC. Owners of residential houses are hiding the utility of their houses/holdings for avoiding legality of tax and instead have made it residential holding instead of declaring the same as commercial.
With a strict monitoring strategy we have been able to trace 40 such illegal defaulters .The resident owners have declared them as residential holdings but running business like hotels and guest house in the premises which is a violation and punishable under Municipal Act told Pramod Kumar Prusty , Zonal Deputy Commissioner , North Zone.
Even trade licenses are not obtained for the business being run in the houses. The owners are hereby liable for double offence. At first the owners are in practice of tax evasion and secondly ruining business or have allowed running business in the holdings without trade license. Even some companies like OYO are running business in such houses. Added to this hostels, nursing hostels,guest houses are running in the premises.
BMC has already taken steps serving notice to these defaulters where it has instructed to stop illegal business in the houses and any deviation of which authority will take legal actions against the owners.
Mention can be made that holding tax are three types, namely residential, rental and commercial. There are area specific charges of the tax where land value is a major concern along with plinth area, floors of the residence as well as electricity and water components. For example, if plinth area of a residential holding about 1000 sqr. feet, the holding per annum will come around Rs. 250; whereas it will be about Rs. 24000/- if the same place is treated as commercial holding.
Such actions will be initiated in other zones for tracing the defaulters and collecting revenue says the authority.
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