Panchayats, Kolhapur civic body differ on tax

The demand of Kolhapur municipal corporation (KMC) to include forty adjacent villages in its statutory area of tax net has not yet found any takers in the state administration department.

The panchayats, which collect taxes from two industrial estates located in the area, have registered their protest against the move and the issue has been a major bone of contention between the panchayats and the municipal corporation.

KMC has been arguing that the area comprising forty villages comes under its limits. The corporation's first IAS administrator did not press the matter during his tenure, even though it was the legitimate right of the KMC to extend the municipality's boundary. Subsequently, the concerned gram panchayat's autonomy was not challenged.

When the industrial areas of Shiroli and Gokulshiragaon were developed, these gram panchayats collected development tax from the Industrial units and they remained outside the KMC's tax net.

Now, the KMC, reeling under the burden of rising urban developmental costs, insists for the inclusion of the villages in its net, so that it can charge not only octroi, but also house tax, property tax and other various taxes.

However, the industrial units and the villages do not want to be taxed by the KMC. Political parties take the side of the villagers as they do not want to lose their presence among the rural vote bank.