TN plans to revise development charges to boost non-tax revenue

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:
In a bid to strengthen Tamil Nadu's non-tax revenues, the state government is looking at revising the development charges, open space reservation area charges and centage charges.
A high level meeting is scheduled this week where in new rates could be announced.
This could boost the state coffers where in additional revenue earned could be more than Rs 100 crore per annum. This comes as Tamil Nadu has estimated to generate Rs 13,327 crore (7% of the revenue receipts) through non-tax sources in 2019-20.
Non-tax sources include interest receipts, dividends, and royalties, among others. It is learnt that this is a decrease of 9.3 per cent over the 2018-19 revised estimate.  In 2018-19, non-tax revenue is estimated to increase by Rs 3,399 crore at the revised stage, a 30.1 per cent increase over the budgeted estimates.
Official sourcessaid  that since the last 13 years, the Open space Reservation (OSR) area charges, development charges, Centage charges for plots and partition of land charges has not been revised.
The idea is to strengthen the non-tax revenue base and augment resources. According to information available, currently the centage charge which is Rs 300 per plot  is likely to be increased to Rs 1,000.
Similarly, the charges for partition of land, which is now being charged Rs 6,500 per application may be increased to Rs 10,000 per application. This could increase the additional revenue per annum for government to Rs 5.50 crore per annum.
The OSR area charges for lesser than 2,500 square metres per site, where in the charges are nil, and for the site which is greater than 2,500 square metres site, where in the charges is 10 per cent of the land value is likely to be evaluated on two times the Guideline value of the land. This is likely to enhance the state coffers by Rs 15 crore to Rs 20 crore per month.
Meanwhile, the development charges where in the maximum was Rs 25 per square metre and Rs 50 per square metre for land and building respectively is likely to be increased. As per the proposal, the minimum charges for land is fixed at Rs 50 per square metre and maximum as Rs 250 per square metre.Similarly for building, the minimum is Rs 100 per square metre and maximum is Rs 500 per square metre.
Ajit Chordia, former president of Confederation of Real Estate Development Authority of India and managing director of Olympia Group told Express that any move to increase non-tax revenues by increasing development charges would be a retrograde step. “When the real estate is looking for stimuli, the move would be anti-stimuli and would have impact on real estate sector, said Chordia.

TN has highest number of detenues in India, says NCRB data

CHENNAI:
A total of 2,096 Indian prison inmates consisting of 2,039 Males and 57 Females were confined in various jails in the country with Tamil nadu recording the highest number of detenues.

According to National Crime Records Bureau data at the end the year 2017 which was released on Monday, the state has reported 810 detenues, the highest in the country, followed by Gujarat (345) and Karnataka (211) accounting for 38.6%, 16.5%, 10.1% of the total Detenues inmates respectively.

These three states have contributed to 65.2 per cent of total Detenues. Nearly 54pc Detenues ((1,122)) were in the age group 30 years to below 50 years  followed by 40.6 per cent ((850) ) in the age-group of 18 years to below 30 years.

The report said of the 16.55 lakh inmates jailed in 2017, 41,378 languish in tamil nadu prisons. The report states that the number of inmates in the prisons has increased by 17.02 per cent during 2012-2017 (from 3,85,135 inmates in December 31, 2012 to 4,50,696 inmates in
December 31, 2017).

Among the inmates, number of convicts during 2012-2017 has increased by 8.89 per cent whereas the number of undertrial inmates has increased by 21.13 per cent. Also, the number of detenues has increased by 11.13 per cent during the same period. The report also states that Tamil nadu has 71 of the 2,250 foreign undertrails languishing in its jail. The 2,250 undertrails belong to nationalities of Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, Myanmarese, Chinese, japanese, canadians, South East asian nations, Sri lankan and Pakistanis among others.

The report also states that total of 396 convicts were lodged in various jails of the country for committing offences against Public Tranquility (Rioting only) under Indian Penal Code (IPC) as on December 31, 2017. Maharashtra has reported the highest number of convicts (129) followed by Tamil Nadu (60) and Haryana (29) accounting for 32.58 per cent, 15.15 per cent and 7.32 per cent of the total convicted inmates lodged under offence against Public tranquility.

The report also states that a total of 498 convicts were lodged in various jails of the country for committing offences against SC/ST-related acts under Special and Local Laws (SLL) as on December 31, 2017. Uttar Pradesh has reported the highest number of convicts (211) followed by Rajasthan (61) and Tamil Nadu (53), accounting for 42.37 per cent, 12.25 per cent and 10.64 per cent of the total convicted inmates lodged under SLL crimes which are specific to crime against SC/ST respectively.