Kolkata

Getting Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s assessment officials off the back of property owners was among the key suggestions by members of KMC’s committee appointed to advise the new Trinamool Congress board. Property tax apart, an entire range of issues, that even included the plight of street dogs, were discussed at the first meeting of the advisory committee at Town Hall on July 6.

The decision to appoint the committee had been announced by the Trinamool leadership soon after it won an overwhelming majority in the civic poll. Of the 80 personalities invited to come on board, 64 turned up on July 6.

Committee members asked several questions to mayor Sovan Chatterjee and his mayors-in-council. The chairman of the committee and former mayor Subrata Mukherjee noted all suggestions and promised that the committee would look into the grievances of common citizens.

The hour-long meeting took note of civic problems and the need to beautify the city. Besides, the experts suggested simplification of tax burdens. Professor Sibaranjan Chatterjee suggested introduction of unit area assessment to determine property taxes and economist Avirup Sarkar endorsed the idea.

According to Chatterjee, determining property tax now depends solely on an inspector’s whims and, on occasions, a section of retired government official called as hearing officers. “Are these hearing officers aware of tax rules? In most cases, property owners have to pay a heavy sum for ignorance of KMC inspectors and hearing officers,” he said. Sarkar, however, felt that these problems could be avoided once KMC took a leap from the rental method of tax determination to the unit area method, which is relatively new and has been adopted in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and some other cities.

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