Bengal govt set to waive 10% of property tax for elderly citizens

Kolkata: The state government has proposed to waive 10 percent of the property tax for elderly citizens. It may be mentioned that this comes at the time when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has stated that the state government will take many steps to extend all support to the elderly.

It has been learnt that the state government is going to table two Bills in the state Assembly to ensure the benefit for elderly people. Sources said that the West Bengal Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the West Bengal Municipality (Amendment) Bill, 2018, will be tabled to let the elderly people get a waiver of 10 percent from their property tax.

It will be of great help for the elderly people as they have to pay less property tax. It also has some social implications as well. There have been some cases in which elderly people have faced misbehaviour by their sons and daughters, after transferring all their property in their name.

Once 10 percent of the property tax gets reduced, the elderly people would not be forced to transfer the property in the name of their children. So, the chances of facing misbehaviour or being ill-treated will also reduce.

In the past 6 years, the Mamata Banerjee government has taken several steps for the benefit of elderly people and at the same time, it has been ensured that the benefits reach the grassroot level.

It has also been proposed in the state Budget that the monthly pension of farmers will be increased to Rs 1,000 from Rs 750. At present, around 66,000 elderly farmers get the monthly pension.

In a bid to ensure social security of aged farmers, the state government has decided to bring in 34,000 more elderly farmers under the scheme of old-age pension. So, with the increase in the number of beneficiaries, a total of 1 lakh elderly farmers are going to get the benefits.