Railways stops MCH in its tracks!

By J.S. Ifthekhar

HYDERABAD, MARCH 22. A tiny 300 square feet house in a slum pays an annual property tax of Rs. 500. Guess what the Railways, which is spread over most of Secunderabad and Hyderabad, pays? No, you don't have to take recourse to a calculator. The Railways' contribution can be counted on fingers. It is a mere Rs. 2.72 lakhs for 25 huge properties.

As the financial year draws to a close, the MCH finds itself in a piquant situation, having to recover huge dues from the Railways, the biggest defaulter. In an unusual move, the Corporation has gone for `token attachment' of Vidyanagar and Begumpet railway stations last week. The civic body even thought of locking up some rooms and removing the furniture but refrained as this would have caused inconvenience to the travelling passengers. The MCH resorted to this drastic step as several letters and reminders to the General Manager, South Central Railway, has elicited no response. The MCH even asked the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, to take up the matter with the Centre.

While other Central Government departments have revised and paid the property tax for 2000-2001, it is only the Railways and the Telecommunications Department which continue to default. The Ayakar Bhavan, which houses the Income-Tax Department, has revised its tax component from Rs. 3 lakhs to Rs. 27 lakhs and paid it. The Chief Commissioner, Customs and Central Excise, has paid Rs. 19 lakhs as against the existing Rs. 1.9 lakhs. The RBI, too, has paid an enhanced tax of Rs. 37 lakhs, up from Rs. 1.82 lakhs. Other departments like the National Informatics has paid Rs. 20 lakhs (Rs. 4 lakhs earlier), the Security Printing Press Rs. 24.47 lakhs (Rs. 2.18 lakhs) and the Mint has paid Rs. 5.15 lakhs. The property tax paid by domestic and commercial establishments till date is Rs. 69 crores -- Rs. 7 crores more than previous year.

Since the Railways and the Telecom Department have not gone for self-assessment, the MCH has done its own assessment and fixed their property tax liability at Rs. 8 crores and Rs. 2.1 crores respectively. All Central Government departments enjoy 25 per cent concession in the `service charge' they pay to the civic body. Since the Telecom Department has now become a Government undertaking, it loses this concession and has to pay the full amount, says Mr. L. Premchandra Reddy, Additional Commissioner (Finance), MCH.

The tax for the railway property has not been revised for the past few decades. The Secunderabad area is spread over 26 sq km and of this the area under the Railways is 10 sq km. While the MCH earns property tax of Rs. 16 crores from 16 sq km of non- railway area, what it gets from the Railways for the 10 sq km it occupies is just Rs. 2 lakhs. Interestingly, the MCH gets no property tax from Khairatabad and Begumpet stations. And what it gets from other railway properties is a pittance (see the table).

The highest tax of Rs. 57,955 is paid by the railway quarters, Lalaguda, followed by the Secunderabad railway station which pays Rs. 51,919. The Nampally railway station pays just Rs. 1,523. The `attachment' by the MCH apparently has had no effect on the Railways and under Section 213 of the MCH Act, the civic body is empowered to seek property details from anybody. If somebody fails to respond, the MCH can attach and sell the property to recover its dues.

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