Hyderabad: Worried that they would come under the radar of the income tax department, beneficiaries of a government scheme are delaying registration of plots in Uppal Bhagat.
Following requests by about 600 beneficiaries to ease their financial burden during the registration process, municipal minister K.T. Rama Rao had announced that the HMDA would bear the registration costs, amounting nearly to Rs 30 crore of the process. He made this announcement while handing over plot allotment certificates and it was welcomed wholeheartedly by the beneficiaries who have been depending on farming since long.
Later, the HMDA asked the beneficiaries to produce documents for registration. Subsequently, the urban body would have handed over the registration amount to the beneficiaries, depending on the size of the plot.
Once this was done, the property owner was supposed to take a challan and submit it in the sub registrar office to complete the formalities and get ownership of the developed plots.
This left the beneficiaries worried, who fear that accepting a cheque (up to a maximum of Rs 7 lakh) and depositing it in a bank and later withdrawing it to pay for the registration charges would bring them under the lens of the income-tax department.
“Depositing a higher amount for a few days and withdrawing it might attract the scrutiny of the I-T department. All this will create problems for us. That is the reason we are showing little interest,” one of the beneficiaries said.
As an alternative, the beneficiaries have asked the HMDA to complete the registration process by waiving the stamp duty. According to sources, the urban body has written to the government to exempt the beneficiaries from paying stamp duty. “The government has decided not to collect the registration fee from the beneficiaries. An exemption on stamp duty means there will not be any monetary transactions for registration of the plots. HMDA has to pay the registration costs to the department concerned,” sources said.
