A Right To Information (RTI) query has revealed that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has handed over Rs 560 crores out of 590 cr to the government of Maharashtra after recovering repair cess from cessed buildings in the last 12 years in South Mumbai. This has been revealed by a reply to a RTI query filed by RTI Activist Anil Galgali.
Mhada and BMC has been washing away their hands to take the responsibility of illegal buildings and alterations carried out by the landlords or the tenants, inviting frequent incidents of wall and building collapses. Query filed by the RTI Activist Anil Galgali had sought to know the amount of cess recovered by the Tax collector mediator BMC in last 12 years and the amount handed over to the Maharashtra Housing And Development Authority (MHADA). Replying to his query, the Assessment Department said that from Year 2007-08 to 2018-19, BMC recovered Rs 589.46 crore as cess from the cessed buildings from A ward to G ward and then handed over Rs 559.99 crore to Mhada. Reply also said that BMC took commission of 5% from the recovered amount and kept 29.47 crore with it. Notably, the BMC gets a five per cent commission on the annual recovery of repair cess tax.
Reply also figures out that most of the cess was recovered in the year 2009-10 when it collected Rs 78.24 crore from the cessed buildings. According the figures, there are 17,057 cessed buildings located in South Mumbai, which are quite dilapidated and need urgent repairs or redevelopment.
Anil Galgali said, "When Mhada gets almost all the money recovered as cess, then the first and foremost responsibility of maintaining the building lies with Mhada only. In the case of any incident of disaster, Mhhada can not absolve itself from the responsibility."
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