Delhi govt forms fifth committee to classify vacant land and re-evaluate property taxes

New Delhi: The Delhi government has now constituted a fifth Municipal Valuation Committee (MVC) that will make recommendations to the three civic bodies here — North, East and South —on matters of classification of vacant lands and buildings into colonies and whether property taxes should be increased, government officials said on Wednesday.

According to the officials, the five-member committee will be headed by retired IAS officer Anindo Majumdar. Other members of the committee are retired IAS officer Umesh Kumar Tyagi, additional commissioner of South Delhi Municipal Corporation (in-charge of the property tax department) Amit Sharma, chartered Accountant Naveen ND Gupta and advocate M Badar Mohmood.

Confirming this, the civic bodies said the tenure of the committee will be six months within which it will submit the report.

Significantly, last year, MVC-3 had recommended doubling the property tax on rented commercial properties, telecom towers, vacant commercial lands, industries, marriage halls, banquets, educational institutions, entertainment and recreation

facilities. These were implemented by the SDMC in April 2020 and later by the other two civic bodies as well. But with an eye on the 2022 civic polls, in October this year, all three civic bodies rolled back the hikes one after the other.

The MVC also gives recommendations on the classification of vacant lands and buildings in any ward of Delhi into colonies, valuation of properties under jurisdiction of civic bodies, a senior SDMC official said.

"The MVC shall recommend the classification of various lands and buildings like plotted housing, group housing, urban village, colony with flats, unauthorised colony, resettlement colony, rural village and non-residential area, the official said.

A statement released by the SDMC said the MVC is a statutory body and it makes recommendations with regards to the classification of various colonies, lands and

buildings. It also makes recommendations on decrease or increase in Unit Area Value of various lands and buildings in different categories of colonies, use factor of various buildings and lands as per the use, occupancy factor and age factor among others, the statement read.

"The MVC will also recommend classification of availability of civic and social infrastructure, access to roads, access to district centres, local shopping centres, convenience shopping centres and other markets, it stated.