With the upcoming municipal polls on mind, the Punjab Government on Tuesday gave a major reprieve to its urban residents.
The State Cabinet agreed to lower and rationalise the rates of property tax on various properties along with delinking the same from collector rates — benefiting nearly 50 per cent of the property owners.Besides, the Cabinet has also approved a new policy for regularisation of unauthorised colonies, plots or buildings, aiming at bringing all unauthorised colonies under planning framework besides providing basic infrastructure facilities to the residents.
The tax-burden, including property tax, emerged out to be one of the major issues during 2014 general elections that led to SAD-BJP combine’s loss on seven out of 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab despite having its own the Government.The Cabinet gave its nod to amend the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911, and Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, to provide relief to the public in the Property Tax on land and buildings.
The decision came after the Committee under the chairmanship of State Government Minister Anil Joshi, constituted to reconsider the issue of Property Tax in urban areas, gave its recommendations.As per the new decision, all the Municipalities of the State would be divided in three categories — Category A, B and C.Category A would further be divided into three sectors, while categories B and C would be divided into two sectors.
The religious places, cremation grounds, cattle pounds, historical buildings, old aged home, orphanage, buildings or land belonging to the Municipalities, Government or Government-aided school or colleges, government hospitals or dispensaries, parking slots (only in multi-storey flats) and land under agriculture or horticulture would be exempted under the property tax.
Exemption to widows and disabled up to Rs 5000, freedom fighters, BPl families, ex-servicemen (total exemption) and all educational institutions have also been given up to 50 per cent.Under “no tax” category, houses constructed on plots measuring 50 square yards, irrespective of storey, single storey residential houses up to 125 square yards and flats up to 500 square feet super covered area have been included, along with the vacant plots.
The 7.50 per cent tax would be levied on total annual rent of non-residential rented buildings. All newly-created Nagar Panchayats or created before April 1, 2014, or have not completed three years up to April 1, 2014, and new regions included in Municipalities would be exempted for a period of three years.
COlONy REGUlARISATION POlICY REVIVED FOR 1 YR
Further, to offer another opportunity to the public who could not avail of earlier policy for regularisation of unauthorised colonies and plots or buildings across the state, the Cabinet also approved a new policy “for a period of one year” for regularization of these colonies, plots or buildings.
During the period of operation of the policy, 2,12,415 applications for regularization were received. “But due to large number of applications, shortage of staff and due to implementation of Model Election Code of Conduct, these applications could not be processed in the stipulated period,” he said.
Citing another reason to bring back the regularization policy, spokesperson said that several NRI owners of colonies or plots and the people working outside Punjab could not avail the opportunity of getting their colonies or lots regularised.
223 CITIZEN-CENTRIC SERVICES UNDER USDCs
Aiming at providing 223 citizen-centric services to the state’s populace in an integrated manner under a single roof, the Punjab Cabinet has also given its nod to set up 1750 rural and 424 urban ‘Unified Service Delivery Centres’ (USDCs) from where all the services of every department would be made available to the citizens at their doorsteps in a hassle-free manner within a minimum time period.
In urban areas, one such centre would be planned within a radius of 1.5 to 2.5 square kilometer areas, based upon the population density. For the rural areas, it was estimated that one service delivery centre for a cluster of villages having 8,000-10,000 population may be established on the basis of initial assessment.
Deputy Commissioners of the concerned district would be the nodal official to steer the program in the respective districts. It has also been decided that in future, no individual department would establish any front-end service delivery centre and all citizen-centric services of every department would be provided through these centres.
to construct DISTRICT lEVEl CATTlE POUNDS
To check the menace of stray cattle across the State, the Cabinet has approved to set up Cattle Pounds at district level.The decision is expected to go a long way to check the fatal accidents caused by stray animals especially the cows, which resulted in heavy human loss.
POlICY FOR AllOTMENT OF PlOTS IN MEDICITY
Cabinet has also approved policy for allotment of plots for hospital, multi-speciality Hospitals, or medical university-cum-colleges and hospital and medical research institutes and small hospitals in Medicity in New Chandigarh.
Spokesperson said that procedure for allotment of plots was very transparent and payment terms were quite liberal. The State Government has decided to establish a hub for medical facilities for which GMADA has acquired 258 acres land in New Chandigarh. “Of this, about 104.21 acres would be utilized for hospital, multi-speciality hospitals, medical colleges-cum-hospital and medical research institutes and the balance land has been kept reserved for infrastructure and commercial facilities,” he said.