FEBRUARY 29

After enjoying a ‘no tax’ status for years together, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has finally brought the telecom companies under the property tax net, for installing service towers on buildings and hilltops within the municipal limits. There are 800 such towers erected by seven cellular companies and the estimated property tax outstanding from this head is Rs 12 crore.

“These telecom company towers should have been brought under the property tax net much earlier, considering their potential to earn money for the PMC," civic chief Praveensinh Pardeshi said. He said that the PMC would try to realise as much outstanding as possible this year itself.

The civic administration has already held meetings with cellular company officials, requesting them to start paying the tax arrears by March 31. Though all the companies are yet to respond, a few of them have conveyed their difficult in paying the entire amount at one go, saying money was not provided in their budget.

“Till now, no tax would be imposed from the cellular companies for their telecom towers raised at various locations like terraces of buildings and hilltops. However, this year, we decided to bring them under the property tax net. We have held a couple of meetings with the service provider companies to discuss this issue. There are about 800 such towers spread across the city by seven companies including BSNL,” said Deputy commissioner (special) of PMC, Dnyandeo Thube.

The companies include Reliance Communication, Tata Telecom, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, GTL Infrastructure Ltd and BSNL.

Another official from the tax collection department said, “We have intimated these companies to pay up the tax amount from the date of the installation of the towers- which is about three months after they signed the actual contract with the land-owners. We have issued notices about 10 days back.”

“ The total property tax amount, we are going to charge from them is about 59 per cent only. We will give them exemption in Jal Labh Kar (water benefit tax) and sewerage tax, which add up to six per cent. In addition, we would also exempt them from water tax which covers 25 per cent of the total property tax,” he said.