3,000 Chennai buildings to pay tax for allowing cellphone towers

CHENNAI: Even as the Greater Chennai Corporation already commenced issuing property tax revision notices to property owners in Chennai, the civic body eyes additional revenue from taxing mobile phone towers erected on the private buildings.

Vishu Mahajan, Chennai Corporation deputy Commissioner (revenue and finance), said that field officials have identified around 3,000 cell phone towers across the city.

"Property tax will be calculated based on the rental amount being collected by property owners from the telecom firms. There is a formula to arrive the tax amount and we have asked the telecom firms to provide details of the towers," he added.

Several years ago, the civic body collected property tax against the cellphone towers. But, some property owners approached the courts against the tax calculation methods.

Mahajan added that half yearly tax amount for the cellphone towers was fixed at Rs 15,000 flat for all the buildings irrespective of the rent that the owners earn. While delivering the order in the cases against the property tax, the High Court instructed to collect the tax based on the rent.

Apart from identifying the 3,000 buildings that have towers, the civic body has instructed field officials to continue identifying such towers.

The senior official added that measures have been taken to deliver the tax demand notices to the 3,000 property owners. Several months ago, T Nagar Residents Welfare Association had urged the civic body to collect tax for towers. In 2021, the civic body passed a resolution to collect tax.

It may be noted that a report prepared by the civic body to find ways to increase tbe own source revenue has listed collecting property tax against cellphone towers as one of the revenue generation method.

Meanwhile, the civic body has delivered more than 5 lakh notices apprising the property owners about the recent tax revision and requested them to pay up the tax at new rates.