Other States - New Delhi   

NDMC tightens grip on luxury hotels

By Sandeep Joshi

NEW DELHI FEB. 10. The cash-strapped New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has decided to tighten its grip on four major private luxury hotels in Lutyens' Delhi that have come up on land given on lease by the civic body. Besides re-signing the land agreement deal with the hotel owners asking for "occupancy tax'' to NDMC, it will also launch tax assessment process from 1999.

The four hotels -- Le Meridien, Metropolitan Nikko, Inter-Continental and Connaught -- have come up on NDMC land that has been leased to private firms. However, at the time of signing the land agreement with the hotel owners, NDMC surprisingly failed to introduce any clause to enable it to charge property tax payable as per the room rent charged by them from their customers.

``It is very strange that at the time of signing the deal with private parties, no one thought how NDMC will be charging occupancy tax from these hotels who have been earning crores from properties that have come up on our land,'' said a senior NDMC official, adding that though the land might belong to the civic body the property was occupied by private parties who were charging rent, so NDMC has every right to charge tax on rent as per its ratable value.

``Technically speaking, the hotel owners are charging rent so they are the owners of the property. So when they are earning in crores from properties on our land we have every right to charge property tax from them. Moreover, their activities are not confined to earning by giving rooms on rent. A number of other commercial activities are also going on from these premises and a number of mini shopping centres have come up which is against the agreement,'' the official said.

Now NDMC is busy in the nitty-gritty of working out a clause to be included in the land agreement deal in order to charge tax from private hotel owners. "Though we have been trying to get the necessary go-ahead for the past three years to get the process of agreement renewal started, it is only now that we have been successful in convincing the higher authorities. The work of re-assessing the tax will begin this month after which we will go forward with our plan to change the land agreement deal, which we believe will not be an easy job.''

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Other States

News: Front Page | National | Southern States | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary |

Stories in this Section

• Power situation may turn the tables on Congress
• V-C's decision draws flak
• Regularise single-point scheme, power firms told
• NDMC tightens grip on luxury hotels
• Women take up fuel conservation cause

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu