MMC Chairperson Girish Borker, Chief Officer Deepesh Priolkar and other members of the Mormugao Municipal Council during a drive to reassess houses at Driver’s Hill in Vasco.
Photo Credits: Vikram Nayak
VASCO
After a gap of 27 years, the Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) on Wednesday finally launched a drive to reassess houses in the municipality.
MMC Chairperson Girish Borker launched the drive to reassess houses in his ward at Driver’s Hill along with a team of the municipal staff in the presence of the MMC Chief Officer Deepesh Priolkar.
Speaking to media persons, Borker sought cooperation from people during the drive that would allow municipal staff to measure the area of the house as part of the re-assessment.
"We have a lot of people who have not assessed their houses and we have started this drive because we have the old houses in our system,” said Borker. “This drive is to maintain records with the MMC about the houses in our jurisdiction and while some have come forward and done the re assessment of their new houses, some have not done it. We urge people not to panic because the staff will come and measure the houses and set the new tax as per the area of the house."
MMC Chief Officer Deepesh Priolkar said the reassessment drive was a part of efforts to generate revenue for the council.
"We had the last reassessment of houses in 1997 and there have been a lot of changes to the houses since then. In our system, many houses are still paying taxes as per rates fixed in 1997 but in reality, these houses have undergone a lot of changes,” said Priolkar
“Secondly, the MMC is very weak financially and has very less funds. Hence, we decided to undertake the drive to reassess houses after the approval of the council. Actually as per rules, the council has the power to reassess the houses every four years but the reassesment was not done for such a long time.”
“We decided to start the reassessment drive from the chairperson’s ward and we realised that many houses have been paying taxes as per minimum rates of Rs 300 which was fixed for houses with tiled roofs but in reality the houses have changed and extended.”
The chief officer said the MMC would take a note of all changes and accordingly send people notices to pay the new revised taxes.
“Basically, we do not want to harass anyone but we want to ensure that we recover our dues as per new rules. We urge all people to come forward take steps to reassess their houses and pay their dues," said Priolkar.
