Property tax amnesty : EDMC extends last date of scheme to March 31

New Delhi: Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP-ruled East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has extended the last date for availing an amnesty scheme for payment of property tax to the end of March, officials said Sunday.

The other two BJP-ruled corporations, the North and South Corporations -- NDMC and SDMC -- had kept March 31 as the last date while announcing the scheme earlier. "For property owners in east Delhi, the amnesty scheme has been extended till the end of March. It was to be effective till February 28 earlier," a senior EDMC official said.

Under the amnesty scheme, property owners in the city will not have to pay interest and penalty if they clear pending dues of the tax.

"For east Delhi, areas in focus are the unauthorised colonies and unauthorised regularised colonies where people do not pay property taxes. Idea is to make this scheme serve as an incentive to bring them under the tax net," the official said.

In North Delhi, the NDMC has announced a similar scheme which covers all private properties, while in the south Delhi, the SDMC scheme covers all properties. For property owners in north Delhi, the scheme will cover defaulters who have not filed property tax since April 2004, officials said.

A senior SDMC official said, " In south Delhi, some of the major areas which remain out of tax net are rural urban areas and urban villages".

"People living in these areas should be brought under the tax net to augment the corporation's income," he said.

The corporations have been announcing similar schemes every year close to the end of a financial year, but, sources said, with elections in the offing, such amnesty schemes are being implemented also keeping the voters in mind.