The Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) has issued demand notices to 73 Government departments seeking payment of property tax on their buildings.

The municipal commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey said that to set an example the MCD itself has deposited property tax on its own building. The corporation deposited Rs 25 lakh as tax for four years after 20 per cent rebate on the actual amount of Rs 28 lakh.

Pandey informed that demand notices have been sent to both government and semi-governmental offices. He also informed that the MCD introduced had introduced commercial tax from the year 2015-16 under which commercial house tax was to be collected from all the Government, semi-Government and private establishments of the city and now the MCD has sent demand notices to these establishments after paying the tax itself. “Under the municipal corporation act, only three types of buildings are exempted from the taxes which are the court, jail and treasury. Apart from this all the buildings, Government, semi-government and private falls under the tax payer category,” said Pandey. “We have assessed that the corporation would have to pay Rs seven lakhs annually as tax. With imposing tax on the corporation’s building, we have made it clear that when the MCD can impose tax on its own building then it can impose tax on all the Government and semi-government buildings too. The Government offices are being approached continuously in order to spread the word,” he added.

Deputy municipal commissioner Rohitash Sharma said that this is happening for the first time that the MCD has imposed tax on its own building.

“MCD is not sparing any building from paying the tax and as the corporation’s building also falls under the tax bracket, we have also deposited Rs 25 lakh as property tax,” said Sharma.