KMC to roll out waiver scheme in property tax

Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation is rolling out a waiver scheme for both interest and penalty in property tax from Thursday.

The waiver will be on offer from October 1 this year and will expire in May 2021.

"We will be allowing complete waiver of pending tax in the first five months when the penalty and interest will be zero and the defaulter will only have to pay the principal amount. If the dues are cleared after five months we will allow 60

per cent discount in interest and 99 per cent in case of penalty," said a senior official of

KMC.

Firhad Hakim, Chairman Board of Administrators KMC said that the KMC has received the government nod to roll out the waiver scheme.

"The State Cabinet has approved our proposal," he added.

Payments can be made in both online and offline mode and persons who will apply for the waiver scheme will get fresh

bills.

The civic body had sent the proposal to the state government for the waiver in the month of July in a desperate bid to compensate for the huge loss in property tax revenue with the lockdown since the third week of March.

According to sources in KMC's revenue department, this is the third waiver scheme in the KMC.

The first waiver scheme was introduced during the tenure of Subrata Mukherjee (2000-2005) and was followed during

that of Sovan Chatterjee (2010-2015).

It had allowed the defaulters to pay only the principal arrear with penalty and interest for non payment being waived.

The KMC has already decided not to send property tax arrear bills to the house

owners that are more than six-years-old.