CHENNAI CORPORATION: Saidai Ravi demands to levy property tax on schools

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on June 30

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/saidai-demand-to-levy-property-tax-on-schools/289345.html

CHENNAI: The Opposition Floor Leader of the Chennai Corporation Council, 'Saidai' P Ravi (of the Congress party), on Wednesday reiterated his demand to levy property tax on private schools located within city limits.

Participating in the Zero Hour debate during the monthly Council meeting held in the city at Ripon Building, Ravi said, "Though the civic body had several times in the past debated the issue at length and recommended necessary amendments to the Madras City Municipal Corporation (MCMC) Act (1919) to impose a property tax on private schools via a resolution, nothing has moved further."

He appealed to the Mayor M Subramanian to pass a new resolution in the next Council meeting asking the State government to reconsider the Council's request (sent two years ago) of bringing in an amendment to the MCMC Act to impose property tax on private schools.Later, speaking to Express, Ravi said, "Private schools, which are making a killing by collecting hefty fees from students, are no longer doing social service and have commercialised the education system."If property tax were levied on private schools, the civic body would be able to earn about `10 crore annually, he said.According to an estimate, the city has 732 private schools and 119 governmentaided schools."When the private schools collect hefty charges as fees from students, why should they be shown leniency," asked Ravi, demanding that the State government consider the civic body's previous resolution on the matter.

In 2008, for the first time, the civic body started debating whether to collect property tax from private schools in order to increase its dwindling revenue resources. However, the decision met with a sharp criticism in the Council.

Though a few voiced support, most councillors spoke in favour of the private schools stating 'they were doing social service' and hence property tax should not be collected from them.

After months of discussion, the Council in July 2009 finally passed a resolution to amend the MCMC Act and include private schools under the property tax ambit and sent the recolution to the State government for its assent. Despite the clear and unanimous resolution to amend the Act, nothing has moved further in the last 23 months.