Due to the adverse effects of Covid-19 pandemic on the lives and businesses of the locals in Dehradun city, the property tax collection of the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) is likely to suffer this year. In the last one month, four Covid-19 positive cases have been found in the corporation and to curb the contagion, MCD had to restrict the entry of public in the premises for at least two days every time a positive case was found. Besides, several commercial activities were prohibited during the lockdown months as part of the measures to restrict Covid-19 contagion and those which have resumed recently including malls, restaurants and hotels are not doing as well as before. According to the municipal commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey, the property tax collection is obviously getting affected due to Covid-19 this year. He said that due to recurring Covid cases in the corporation, the corporation regularly restricted the public’s entry for various works including property tax payment which is taking a toll on the collection because most of the property tax payers prefer to deposit tax in the campus. The online submission of property tax is also not satisfactory as many people still avoid depositing tax through online mode, stated Pandey.
Meanwhile, several property tax payers of the last financial year have still not submitted the property tax. The MCD had set the target of Rs 50 crore for the property tax collection of the last financial year but due to the lockdown imposed to curb Covid-19 contagion in March, the corporation was able to collect only about Rs 44 crore from residential and non-residential taxpayers. In the current financial year, the MCD has collected about Rs four crore so far. On the question of the set target of the property tax collection for the financial year 2020-21, Pandey said that this year is quite uncertain and therefore, the corporation did not set any target for the current financial year. It is pertinent to mention here that property tax is a major source of revenue for the MCD.
Friday, 04 September 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
