Shell out more for high value property

Owners of high-value buildings in the city have to brace themselves to shell out more, as a new fee called “improvement charges” has been proposed by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in its 2010-11 budget. The civic authority hopes to garner additional revenue of around Rs. 200 crore from this source.

The BBMP budget proposes a slew of new fees to augment its resource generation. This includes a special development charge on high-value properties, tax on heavy commercial vehicles which use roads for loading and unloading, fees on towers and dish antennae erected for commercial purposes and fee on private electrical transformers installed on BBMP properties.

According to sources, several high-level apartments are coming up across the city. These will impact the existing infrastructure in the areas, including underground drainage system, solid waste management system and water resources. This will have a cascading effect on the infrastructure and the BBMP will have to incur expenditure to provide additional facilities.

The tax on heavy transport vehicles is to compensate the wear and tear of roads. “Huge, heavy vehicles are parked in the dense areas of the city, such as Chamarajpet and City Market. They are parked for hours together and block the thoroughfare for other vehicles, besides deterioration of the roads,” sources said.

Many towers and dish antennae are erected on private property, who charge huge sums of money as ground rent. However, no payment is made to the civic authority.

The BBMP also proposes to levy fees on apartment complexes and huge property developers who install their transformers on BBMP properties.

“We will collect a one-time payment from them.”

Sources said that the BBMP proposes to earn around Rs. 50 crore to Rs. 100 crore from these fees. “It is difficult to say definitely how much revenue will be generated from these sources. We will have to conduct a survey, fix a rate and method of collection.”

Apart from this, the BBMP hopes to earn Rs. 120 crore by levying improvement charge on new and private layouts. These layouts, sources said, are the ones on revenue lands that have been converted by the Deputy Commissioner (Urban). They do not come under either the BBMP or the Bangalore Development Authority.

Traders oppose

Secretary of Federation of Trade Associations of Central Bangalore B.K. Goyal has opposed the tax on heavy commercial vehicles.

“The traders will be burdened. It is not only a hindrance but also be a source of corruption. It is indirectly an octroi,” he said.