Updated on Feb 24 at 1.48 p.m.

In the AMC board meeting, the opposition’s claim of malpractice in the two malls of the city led to a show-cause notice issued to the deputy assessor and tax collector of the northwest zone.

Mihir Patel, deputy municipal commissioner of the north-west zone, replied that all the offices and shops of Palladium and TRP Mall are counted as tenants, but only parking and authority offices in the malls have been counted under ‘self’.

On the other hand, it was mentioned in the meeting that 495 offices and shops out of 810 at Bopal’'s TRP Mall are closed. However, only 251 of them have been counted as rented.

Rent agreements for 17 new offices and shops have been ordered to be submitted, whereas 47 of them have been told to be labelled as ‘self’.

Updated on Feb 23, at 4.44 p.m.

Amdavad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) is accused of corruption in labelling mall tenants as property owners, to potentially avoid taxes.

In an alleged corruption by the tax department of AMC, the assessment officials labelled tenants as ‘self’ of the 880 properties at the city’s largest Palladium and TRP malls.

Revenue committee chairman, Aniruddhsinh Zala said, “Though most of the shops and offices at Palladium and TRP Mall are rented, the zonal deputy assessor and tax collector have posed the properties as ‘self’. We will issue a notice, and they will have to disclose the matter.”

More than 56,000 new properties were measured

After the inclusion of new areas in the AMC boundary, a total of 16,692 commercial and 40,232 residential properties were measured, bringing the total to 56,976.

Since the implementation of the tax interest waiver scheme, the tax department has been earning a daily income of ₹7.5 cr for the past week.

Running hot and cold

In the two malls in the north west zone, the tax collectors are not keen to collect property taxes, but on the other hand, officials from the AMC have been issuing final warnings to residents in various wards of the city to recover outstanding property taxes from residential and commercial properties.

The warnings included actions such as cutting off water and sewer connections.

Recently, the east zone tax department conducted a drive to collect tax from taxpayers with the help of State Reserve Police (SRP).

Toll-free number for reporting tax-related complaints

In a revenue committee meeting, a toll-free number has been announced for citizens to register any complaints related to tax.

Complaints will be received by the committee chairman and deputy municipal commissioner. Tax officers in the zones and wards with the most tax-related complaints will be notified.

The tax department officials of AMC have been instructed to form an ‘assessment cell’ to assess the city’s building use permissions for commercial, residential, and other properties. A report on this will be presented at the next revenue committee meeting.

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