Councillors allege 70% property tax bills incorrect, MCG to set up zone-wise camps

Gurugram: The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) will constitute zone-wise teams to address all property tax bill related grievances and discrepancies. The decision was taken during the MCG house meeting at the John Hall on Monday after councillors alleged that nearly 70% of property tax bills issued across the city were incorrect.

The matter was raised during the meeting by ward 14 councillor Sanjay Pradhan.“The property tax survey conducted by the MCG’s consultant is 70% incorrect. Property tax bills of most residents are either inflated or the records are riddled with discrepancies such as incorrect names of owners, larger property sizes, a higher number of building floors, among others,” Pradhan said.

Pradhan, along with ward 18 councillor Subhash Singla also alleged that the MCG’s consultant was taking bribes to rectify discrepancies.

Mukesh Kumar Ahuja, commissioner, MCG acknowledged discrepancies in property tax bills and attributed this primarily to the civic body carrying out a drone survey instead of a door-to-door one.

“In a drone survey conducted by the consultant last year, the major error, as raised by residents, involved property size. For example, the size of a property mentioned in the survey is around 5-10% higher than the actual,” Ahuja said.

He further said that instead of individuals visiting the MCG offices with property tax bill related issues, the corporation will instead set up zone-wise teams, and hold ward-wise camps for resolving the issues.

“A lot of our old data on property tax accumulated from door-to-door and drone surveys are mostly integrated. We will superimpose these data, and rectify discrepancies wherever they are found,” Ahuja informed.

Regarding allegations of bribery, Madhu Azad, mayor, said that she has asked the commissioner to get the matter verified and initiate action against the consultant if the charges are found to be true.

Prior to the survey completed in 2021, MCG listed 3.7 lakh properties in its records. The number has increased to 5.04 lakh, of which almost 3.16 lakh are residential properties.