Telangana Government defaulting on property tax payments to GHMC

Hyderabad: The State Government is defaulting on property tax payments to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). There are huge tax dues from government buildings in the City, according to a source in GHMC.

For the government buildings in the GHMC limits, over the past three years, the administration didn't release a single penny to the civic body as property tax.

Interestingly, every year the government allocates a certain budget to pay the property tax to the civic body, but it fails to release funds for buildings like police stations, educational department, APSRTC, hospitals, stadia.

Even property tax of Pragathi Bhavan, the official residence-cum-workplace of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is overdue since 2018-19. According to the GHMC property tax portal, tax of Rs 25,49,914 is overdue from Pragathi Bhavan. The tax arrears is Rs 15,12,019, interest Rs 5,09,805 and current levy Rs 5,28,090.

The government itself isn't paying property tax to the civic body leading to it face a financial crisis. In 2017-18 the administration approved Rs 29.04 crore in the State budget for property tax payment of government buildings, but released only Rs 4.36 crore.

The government in 2018-19 allocated in the budget Rs 31.94 crore, in 2019-20 Rs 10 core and in 2020-21, Rs 7.5 crore, but failed to release a single penny to the civic body.