Chennai: While the problem of property tax has been haunting residents of Nanganallur for a long time now, they are worried about the miscalculation of their floor size which has once again resulted in tax hike.
Prashanth Vijaykumar, a resident is one such person who has been affected and has a due of over Rs 10,000 which was not the case a few months ago.
”While my house is 465 sq ft, it has been miscalculated to 965 sq ft on the Greater Chennai Corporation website. I was paying Rs 750 per year previously and now the amount is exorbitant for reasons unknown,” he said.
As the residents are battling for reduction of the tax, they state that it burns a hole in their pockets and an extra burden. When Prashanth raised the issue with the Corporation, he was asked to provide the copies of sale deed, construction agreement, kitchen and main entrance as image printed, request letter to correct, last paid property tax receipt and the document that shows miscalculated amount.
”I submitted the requirements the immediate day. However, neither did I get any acknowledgement or was the error corrected. The official stated that it would take more than four months to rectify,” he said and added that four of six residents from his apartments are having the problem.
Same is the case with Usha, another resident from the neighbourhood. ”While my apartment is 705 sq ft, the tax has been calculated for 900 sq ft under independent house category,” she said.
K R Rajagopalan from Kakkan Street Adambakkam is unhappy with the steep rise of tax and has been taking efforts to bring it down. ”The amount is hiked by 400 per cent. Even the Madras High Court made strong criticism about the inept handling of certain issues by Greater Chennai Corporation,” he said.
”Representation made for reducing tax during past 12 months has not been answered and the basic street rates in Alandur fixed is far higher than Anna Nagar, Adyar and other prime areas in Chennai,” rues an irked Ragavan.
Senior Citizen Forum and Peoples Awareness Association, Nanganallur has launched 5,000 post-card campaign requesting the government to reduce the property tax before the announcement of local body elections.
Asked about the issue to the Zonal Officer of Alandur, he said, ”There is a committee which has been formed to look into the property tax matter. Since there is no direction given on the matter owing to the legal case, there is a slowdown experienced in the process. Once we arrive at a conclusion, the officials will be going for ground work to measure the floor space and rectify it.”
He further asked the residents to pay the tax and have the receipt safe and it will be adjusted once the error is corrected.