Civic body identifies vacant lands, may levy tax soon

Chennai: In a first of its kind initiative, Chennai corporation has taken up a massive vacant plot identification process under which the revenue and public health departments are collecting details from all the 200 wards of city corporation.

While the health department is now serving fine notices for plots enabling breeding of mosquitoes, the revenue department is gearing up to levy vacant land tax as per provisions available with Chennai city municipal corporation Act 1919, informed Ripon Building sources told Deccan Chronicle.

“Last week corporation commissioner D. Karthikeyan passed instructions to enumerate all vacant plots and also identify plot owners. Notices are now being served in the vacant plots and abandoned sites that enable breeding of mosquitoes. So far more than Rs 10 lakh has been collected as fine under public health Act for vector breeding”, said a public health official. “We look out for wornout tyres, piled up garbage and water stagnation in the plots and only the piece of lands that pose sanitation hazards are fined,” the official said adding that Sholinganallur zone accounts for more vacant plots and Tondiarpet zone has the least number of vacant lands.

At present the details of the plot owners are collected and database is created at the corporation headquarters and the biggest challenge is the identification of owners as most of them are living abroad or have settled in other states. There are also plots abandoned due to litigations. By next year, we will have a concrete figure on the vacant and abandoned plots in greater Chennai, an official source with the revenue department said.

It's a good move to impose fine against those who do not maintain their plots. In abroad sanitation is a big issue and we have a long way to go in arresting the breeding of mosquitoes in Chennai, opined civic activist Aarani Sreenivasan of Egmore.