Relief For Flat Buyers In State

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Govt set to ask civic bodies not to levy unauthorised fee

The Bengal government is determined to stop the civic bodies from collecting an extra fee from the flat owners at the time of alteration, a step that is expected to help the homebuyers save theirs thousands of rupees.   A government order directing the municipalities to stop the collecting development fees which will soon reach the chairpersons of the municipalities, said by the Bengal municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim.   Many municipalities and corporations have been slapping an additional tax which is known as the development fee, on the flat owners at the time of alteration although the builders are told to pay a similar fee when the construction proposal is approved.   Few of the civic bodies call it as "mutation charge" or "value addition charge". The size of the fee varies which ranges between 0.5 and 1.5 %of the deed value of a flat. If the deed value of a flat is Rs 50 lakh, a municipality charging development fee at 1% collects Rs 50,000 from a flat buyer under that head during alteration. It is this fee that is being stopped now.   The official alteration fee is a flat Rs 200 across all the municipalities. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation charges Rs 100 as alteration fee.   The Calcutta Municipal Corporation does not charge the development fee. But the fee is exacted by the municipalities such as those in Baranagar, South Dum Dum, Uttarpara, Madhyamgram, Barasat and Barrackpore.   The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation which covers Salt Lake and parts of Rajarhat, and the Howrah Municipal Corporation also charges the fee but at a lower rate.   According to the sources in the office of the inspector-general of registration of the 3 lakh flats registered annually in Bengal and about 2 lakh are in the municipal corporation and municipality areas. Almost all the 125 municipalities in the state, 80 % of them are around Calcutta have been collecting a development fee from the flat owners for around 3 decades.   The West Bengal Municipal (Finance and Accounting) Rules, 1999, which govern all the civic bodies in the state, accept the one in Calcutta which do not have a provision for collecting a development fee. But many civic bodies have been collecting the fee, leaving them vulnerable to legal action.   Officials in the state municipal affairs department said that the charging a development fee amounts to double taxation. Last year, the municipal affairs department had written to the civic bodies by asking them not to offend any rules while collecting the "mutation and other fees" from the flat owners. The municipalities did not notice the letter.   Minister Hakim said to ask what prompted the latest move, the matter has come to the attention of the chief minister. We feel that people should not be burdened unnecessarily.   The minister said that if a municipality demands for the development fees at the time of alteration, the flat buyer can lodge a specific complaint with the state municipal affairs department.

 

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