Green Cess will be levied for new building & layout plans

Mysore/Mysuru: In a move to mop-up revenues without any pilferages, the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) has introduced online portal to pay property tax and for document transfer. The portal will be active from Apr. 1, 2021.

Meanwhile, the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has already begun collecting property taxes online. Quick Response (QR) codes have been distributed to most of the citizens and geo-tagging has been done. This enables the residents to pay tax online without visiting Corporation Offices, officials told Star of Mysore this morning. Each property has a different QR code and scanning of code would help citizens get useful information such as water tax, property tax, trade licence and Swachh Survekshan. 

Regarding MUDA online property tax, Chairman H.V. Rajeev told reporters at his office yesterday that the online tax payment software has been developed for the convenience of citizens and they can pay taxes from the comforts of their homes instead of coming to MUDA Office and waiting in long queues. 

State Government’s allied firm KEONICS has developed the software and all the data has been provided to the firm and the first phase of online property tax will be launched from Apr. 1, he said. All the over 1 lakh properties of MUDA would come under the online tax net, he added. 

All MUDA properties that have not so far been transferred to the MCC too will come under the online system. Once the digitisation is complete, this will pave way for online khatha-related transactions, he explained. 

“All property details have been digitised to enable the software to automatically calculate the property tax amount and in the first phase, the online payment facility will be open to the properties developed by MUDA. Later, the facility will also be available for private properties coming within the MUDA jurisdiction,” Rajeev said. 

Rajeev said that MUDA members have approved the issue of Completion Reports (CR) in case of buildings with up to 50 percent violation of the setback rules and deviation from the approved plans. But this will entail a payment of double the tax amount and instead of CR, ‘fit to stay certificates’ would be issued by MUDA. 

“We have got a lot of complaints about non-issue of CR due to deviations and violation of setback norms and banks are not releasing loans as there is no CR. We have taken cognisance of the fact that building a house on plots measuring 20×30 ft or 30×40 ft leads to deviation from the setback rules and hence we intend to collect a tax to issue the CR provided the violation was below 50 percent,” he said. 

Fee for vacant sites

The ‘fit to stay certificates’ is not an alternative to CR but would enable property owners to secure bank loans and also enable the owners to pay taxes with additional penalties, he added. MUDA has also decided to collect fee from the vacant site owners to keep the property clean devoid of weeds and wild growth. 

The fee will be levied at the rate of Re. 1 per sq. ft in case of sites up to 30×40 ft dimension and Rs. 2 per sq. ft in case of bigger plots. The validity of Building Licence for construction of new houses issued by the MUDA and which expires on Mar. 31, 2021, will also be extended. 

Green Cess

MUDA will raise additional resources through Green Cess for new building and layout plans and share a portion of it with the Forest Department. With the Green Cess — 2 percent of the total layout and building plan fee — MUDA is expecting additional revenue of Rs. 80 lakh per year and it will reserve 50 percent of the amount for the Forest Department to enable it to take up urban forestry schemes. The remaining amount will be utilised by the MUDA for park and lawn development besides planting of trees, Rajeev said. 

MUDA Commissioner Dr. D.B. Natesh, City Planning member Jayasimha, members K. Madesh, Naveen Kumar, Lakshmidevi, Lingaiah and others were present at the press conference.