Mohali Corporation Counts On New Sectors For Tax Boost मोहाली निगम को नए सेक्टरों से टैक्स बढ़ने की उम्मीद ਮੋਹਾਲੀ ਨਿਗਮ ਨੂੰ ਨਵੇਂ ਸੈਕਟਰਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਟੈਕਸ ਵਧਣ ਦੀ ਉਮੀਦ

The Mohali Municipal Corporation closed the last financial year with more property tax than it had planned for. It now expects the next one to bring in far more again, and the reason is on the map. The corporation's budget for this year counts on the new sectors that came inside its limits at the end of last year, from Aerocity and IT City to the sectors in the eighties and nineties, paying the house tax they never paid before.

The Tribune reported the figures in April, when the corporation closed its books for the year to March. Collection beat the target. The forecast for this year is roughly half as much again, and the budget the House approved for this year is about two fifths larger than the last one.

How last year closed

The corporation collected a little more than it set out to, according to the report, and officials put the gain down to one exercise. Around three thousand notices went to owners of homes that had been outside the tax net altogether.

The deadline for last year's tax was the end of March, with a penalty for paying late in the final weeks. Anything paid after the deadline carries a heavier penalty and interest on top. Those rules are set by the state's local government department and apply in the same way across Punjab's corporations.

The figures behind those words are steep. A bill paid in the last stretch before the deadline carried a penalty of a tenth of the tax. Once the deadline passed, the penalty doubled to a fifth, and interest at eighteen per cent a year started to run on what was owed. For a household that has never paid before, the first notice can arrive with arrears already attached.

Not everyone in the House saw the collection as the whole story. A councillor quoted in the same report said paying property tax was a citizen's duty, and in the same breath asked whether the corporation was giving residents the civic amenities that the tax is meant to buy. That question follows the corporation into the new sectors.

Why this year's forecast is so much higher

The corporation's officials linked the forecast directly to the expanded boundary. When the Local Government Department drafted the new limits in October last year, the corporation's commissioner put the effect in a single line: the budget was going to double. The areas named in that draft were Aerocity, IT City, Sectors Eighty One to Ninety Five, the industrial Sectors Seventy Three and Seventy Four, and Sector Fifty Seven.

Those are not empty fields. Aerocity has houses and commercial plots that have been occupied for years. The sectors in the eighties hold large group housing projects. Until the boundary moved, none of that paid municipal property tax, because no municipality covered it. Now it falls inside the corporation, and the corporation's assessment of it is what the forecast rests on.

Our piece on [the corporation's new limits](/article/408-is-aerocity-inside-the-mohali-corporation-what-the-new-limits-cover-and-what-they-leave-out) sets out which sectors and villages came in and which were left out.

Where the money is meant to go

A larger tax base is meant to pay for a larger city. The House approved a budget for this year that is roughly two fifths bigger than last year's and a good part of the extra spending assumes the new sectors pay. The same expansion moves roads and sanitation in the new sectors from GMADA and the private developers to the corporation over time, and the corporation has to fund that work from its own budget once the handover is done.

That is the bargain residents of the new sectors are being asked to accept. In the panchayat villages that were brought in, it was the reason some panchayats protested in December. Their objection was the house tax and water charges that had been free or minimal under the panchayat.

The handover of services has no published timetable. Until it happens, owners in the new sectors can find themselves on the corporation's tax roll while GMADA or a developer still runs the roads outside their gate.

The other councils in the district

The same report gave Kharar's figures. The Kharar council has set itself a much smaller property tax target for this year, and its overall budget is smaller still beside the corporation's. Zirakpur, which is a council and not a corporation, has been the strongest collector among the councils in recent settlement drives. In the state's one-time settlement scheme last summer, which let owners clear old dues without penalty or interest, Zirakpur collected more than all the other councils in the district put together.

Kharar's numbers show the scale of the gap. Its council runs a town that has grown into a city of high-rise societies along the Landran road and the Kurali highway, on a property tax target that is a small fraction of the corporation's. Its budget leans far more on other income than on house tax.

None of those councils is affected by the corporation's expansion. Zirakpur and Kharar keep their own limits and their own tax rolls, and an owner there pays the council, never the corporation.

What an owner inside the new limits can expect

The corporation assesses property tax on buildings, with rates and exemptions that the state notifies and the corporation applies. An owner who has never paid it before is likely to get a notice of the kind that went to the three thousand households last year, and is expected to file a self-assessment for the year. Late payment brings the same penalty and interest as anywhere else in the city.

Owners abroad face the same rules. Our earlier piece on [property tax for owners living abroad](/article/342-mohali-property-tax-for-owners-living-abroad-penalty-dates-and-exemptions) covers the dates and the exemptions that apply.

The open point

The forecast is a forecast. Whether the corporation reaches it depends on how quickly it assesses the new sectors, and on how many owners there pay in the first year. The year runs to the end of March. The figure to watch is the collection the corporation reports when the books close, set against the forecast its own budget rests on.

Sources: The sources we use are listed on our Editorial Sources page.

This piece reports the Mohali corporation's property tax figures and what the expanded limits mean for them. It gives no tax advice, and the tax on any property turns on its own assessment.