The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is introducing unit area assessment of property from 2010-11 fiscal year. The proposal was passed by the mayor-in-council meeting on Saturday. So far, property tax was being calculated on the basis of a building’s notional rent. During the Left Front civic board tenure, Asian Deve-lopment Bank, the
prime lending agency of KMC, pointed out that the system of calculating property tax on the basis of a building’s notional rent was arbitrary and lacked transparency.
Under the new scheme, the tax will be calculated according to the location of the building. In order to introduce the new system, previous civic board had prepared a map of 187 sq km of the city area which was divided into 262 blocks which come under seven tax zones — A to G.
The annual tax for residential buildings will be the highest (Rs 4-5 per square foot) in Zone A, which includes the central business district and Park Street, and the lowest (Rs 1.4 per square foot) in Zone G comprising Metiabruz, Garden Reach, some wards of Behala, and Topsia.
“Its implementation will take about three months as now the law department will issue a gazette notification on this new system. Once the unit area assessment is enforced, the owner of a 1,000 sq ft residential flat in Park Street will have to pay Rs 5,000 as annual property tax.
The corresponding figures in Ballygunge Place, Jadavpur and Topsia will be Rs 4,000, Rs 1,600 and Rs 2,500, respectively,” mayor Sovan Chatterjee said.