Hyderabad: Over 17 lakh of property dues remain unpaid by Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for his official bungalow – Pragati Bhavan at Begumpet, reports said on Saturday.
Though the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation assessed the property tax for Pragati Bhavan since 2018-19, not a penny has been paid for the bungalow, which has been shown as “Chief Minister’s Campus” with address 6-3-870/A, Greenlands, Begumpet, Hyderabad in the records of GHMC, Khairatabad circle.
The CMO has to pay an amount of Rs 1,91,794 for every six months – it comes to around Rs 3,83,588 per annum. As per the records, the total arrears of property tax pending for Pragati Bhavan is around Rs 11.50 lakh for the last three years.
Along with an interest of Rs 1.68 lakh for the non-payment of tax in the last three years, the total dues pending for the CM’s bungalow is Rs 13.19 lakh. For the current year (2021-22), the CMO has to pay another Rs 1.91 lakh by June 30 and since it was not paid before the due date, it incurs additional interest on the total arrears.
So, for four years, as per the assessment of the GHMC, the total arrears of property tax for Pragati Bhavan come to around Rs 17.06 lakh. Since it is an official bungalow, the amount has to be cleared by the CMO from the public exchequer.
Even then, the property tax remains unpaid. It is noteworthy that the GHMC forces its citizens to cough up the property tax under pressure every year, but has remained completely silent to collect dues from the state’s chief minister itself.
The last date for the bi-annual payment of GHMC property tax is July 31 and October 15. An interest of 2 per cent will be charged if you delay the payment. Last year, the Telangana government announced a 50 per cent rebate for residential property owners up to Rs 15,000 in view of COVID-19, just before the GHMC elections.
The rebate benefitted 13.81 lakh property owners in GHMC limits.