Bhubaneswar: Despite state government’s order to refrain from collecting holding taxes on the basis of the revised rates, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) continues to charge the taxes as per the new rates on its online platforms making life difficult for denizens.
In view of rising COVID cases, the civic authority here had closed its office for the general public, allowing entry only to staff members. It requested the citizens to use its online platform, Bhubaneswar.me, to redress any grievances, license approvals or payment of dues.
However, much to surprise of the citizens, the online portal and the application which allows payment of holding taxes under BMC’s citizen services, is still charging the inflated amounts. This despite the Odisha government order in March putting on hold the BMC’s decision to collect holding tax at higher rates until the High Court gives it verdict on the issue.
“I used to pay about Rs 780 as holding tax yearly before the BMC increased the rates. The new rates shot up my holding tax up to 45 times and I was asked pay about Rs 35,000 annually. However, I was relieved after the government ordered the BMC to collect taxes on the old rates. I planned to clear my dues for last year through the portal but was shocked that my outstanding amount was still around Rs 35,000,” complained Prafulla Panda, a senior citizen at Satya Nagar.
It can be mentioned here that the BMC in October 2019 had revised the benchmark value of land cost of different mouzas and affected the new rates from April 2020. This resulted in unprecedented rise of holding taxes for the people. Consequently, it met with vehement protests from the Opposition parties as well as the denizens.
Meanwhile, responding to the non-compliance of the state government orders, BMC’s Deputy Commissioner, Revenue, Srimanta Mishra said, “We are following the orders but the non-revised rates only apply to physical mode of payment. Since the matter is sub-judice in the Odisha High Court we kept the rates unchanged.”