After North civic body, East and South civic bodies will soon levy commercial property tax on mobile towers installed on rooftops, building terraces and balconies. With this move, the three agencies that are reeling under severe financial crunch will be able to generate more revenue. While nearly 66 per cent of cell towers in the national Capital are illegal and are operating under the nose of the MCD the decision has come as a bad news for the property owners.
While the North MCD has already begun collecting taxes, South and East Corporation will soon follow the suit. While the property owners of these areas extract money from these mobile operators for hanging the wires in residential and office areas. Therefore the corporations have decided to extract taxes from these property owners. According to sources, the range of property tax is mapped according to the length and breadth of the area.
"North Corporation has started extracting property taxes at commercial rates. This in turn will generate revenue for all three MCDs as it is already reeling under severe cash crunch. Tens of thousands of property owners are minting money from mobile operators," said an official in North DMC. North Corporation Commissioner PK Gupta ordered the property department to carry out the task. Officials of the department have begun sending notices to the property owners regarding payment of commercial taxes.
Official in North MCD said that the department has sent notices to around 1,500 property owners who have paid the taxes. Moreover the corporation is looking for more areas where mobile towers are illegally operating without the MCD's knowledge. The building department has sent notices to all property owners. There are around 3,000 and 3,670 mobile towers under North MCD and South MCD, of which some are legal.
Moreover, the South civic body has also framed a proposal for renting-out the roof-top or open areas of the buildings of the corporation for installation of mobile towers to different telecom companies through open bid basis.