Pune Municipal Corporation increases tax for cellphone towers

The general body (GB) of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Friday approved a proposal to increase property tax on cellphone towers from the present 78% to 125%.

Leader of the house in the PMC, Nilesh Nikam, said the towers occupy little space and the tax is charged on annual ratable value of the space occupied.

He said there are about 3,500 cellphone towers in the city and the property tax is not charged on many of them. If tax is collected for all the towers at the revised rates, then the PMC will get revenue of up to Rs15 crore annually.

Meanwhile, independent corporator Ujwal Keskar criticised the PMC administration for wrongly charging tax on information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES) properties at the commercial rate.

He said the state government has formulated a policy to charge property tax for buildings for IT and ITES companies at concessional rate charged for residential properties. However, the administration is calculating tax for these properties on the basis of commercial valuation in contravention of the government policy.

He said the economic growth of the city is because of the IT and ITES business. However, the administration is creating hurdles in the growth of the sector. He said he will fight against the decision of the administration.