Residents of 66 layouts in the city, maintained by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA), can heave a sigh of relief as they will shortly come under the administration of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC). MUDA is ready to hand over these layouts to the MCC for administration, apart from provision and maintenance of civic infrastructure. Though the official transfer was supposed to take place on Monday, it was called off at the last minute.
Of the 66 layouts, four are MUDA-developed layouts, while the remaining 62 are private layouts. The four MUDA layouts are Datttagalli 3rd stage, Vijayanagar 3rd stage, Vijayanagar 4th stage, 1st phase, Satgalli Layout 1st stage and Hanchya Satgalli A zone.
The 62 private layouts are spread across the city and a majority of them are in Srirampura, Bogadi, Hinkal, Satghalli, Yarganahalli and Devanoor. MUDA Chairman K.R. Mohan Kumar told The Hindu that once transferred, local residents will pay property tax to the MCC and can demand civic amenities. “We have developed the area and provided basic amenities, but maintenance and extension of civic amenities is the responsibility of the MCC,” said Mr. Kumar. It was a long-pending demand of many of the private layout residents to hand over the administration to the MCC as it would facilitate extension of civic amenities including roads, maintenance of gardens etc.
Once transferred, the MCC’s potential for augmenting property tax will go up significantly. Apart from a large number of dwelling units in each of the layouts, the property tax for areas coming under MCC is higher. However, the MCC’s expenditure is also set to increase proportionately as it has to bear the expenses for new civic works and also electricity charges for street lights, UGD works, solid waste management etc.
Property tax
Consequent to the new layouts coming under the ambit of the MCC, the target for property tax for 2015-16 may be revised.
The MCC has a target of collecting Rs.120 crore by way of property tax this year and besides the new layouts, nearly 19,750 properties in the revenue layouts will also be under the tax net. This will also call for updating the property register and the MCC is expected to conduct a fresh survey of both the residential and commercial properties coming under its jurisdiction. As per the existing records, there are nearly 1.76 lakh registered properties in the MCC limits and this does not include those in the revenue layouts.
Mr. Mohan Kumar said besides 66 layouts, there are nearly 200 other private layouts in the city which were under various stages of completion, but their transfer to the MCC would take time.
