On Wednesday, the standing committee of the BJP-led North civic body did not inflict any new tax and rejected an offer in its budget 2022-23 to increase residential and commercial property taxes, even though the municipality is in an acute financial crisis and has not been able to pay its employees for months.

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation additionally decided not to sanction the Commissioner's plan to decrease rebate on property taxes by 5%. The decision by the civic group's standing committee comes ahead of the civic polls due this year.

North Delhi Municipal Corporation Commissioner Sanjay Goel, in his budget 2022-23 presentation on November 25, 2021, had planned to boost the property tax by 2% and decrease the tax rebate from the existing 15% to 10%. He had said that these decisions would boost the financial condition of the municipality.

Presenting the updated budget estimates, North Corporation Standing Committee Chairman Jogi Ram Jain said that no new tax is being planned in the civic body's budget. As people are still not over the Covid-19 pandemic and it has badly affected the financial condition of the public, the proposal to decrease the rebate from 15% to 10% by Commissioner North DMC was not accepted. Proposal to raise the property tax by 2% as recommended by the Commissioner is additionally not being accepted by the Standing Committee. Jain additionally said that to further give comfort to residents, a substantial part of the increased property tax on Municipal Valuation Committee-3 (MVC-3) basis has also been removed by the North DMC.

As per the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the updated budget estimates for the year 2021-22 reached Rs 7,818.66 crore, while the budget estimate for the year 2022-23 reached Rs 7,504.91 crore. Jain told the media that the civic body is additionally striving to increase its health infrastructure at the time of the pandemic. Over 500 LMO (Liquid Medical Oxygen) based oxygen beds provision is being made for all North DMC Hospitals.

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