Federation of private schools seeks property tax waiver

Only a section of students paid fees, it tells High Court

August 03, 2021 01:42 am | Updated 02:31 am IST - CHENNAI

The Federation of Association of Private Schools in Tamil Nadu (FAPSIT) has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the government to consider waiver of property tax for school buildings for the years 2020 and 2021.

When the matter was listed before Justice Anita Sumanth on Monday, she adjourned the matter to September 2 and asked the petitioner to pursue with the government a representation made by it on May 31 seeking waiver of property tax.

Federation secretary D.C. Elangovan said schools in the State remained closed from March 2020 when the first wave of COVID-19 disrupted normal life. During this period, schools conducted online classes to ensure continuity in education.

As feared, the second wave made it impossible to reopen schools fully and online classes continued to be in vogue. In the meantime, private school managements had to struggle to settle loans availed for constructing buildings and purchasing buses.

Claiming that only a section of students had paid 75% of the fees, permitted to be collected by the court for online classes, and that the money was hardly enough to pay staff salaries, the federation sought waiver of property tax for school campuses.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.