Mumbai: Fire services fee passed on to owners; BJP smells a scam

The one-time fire service fees are to be collected from buildings that have been constructed between March 3, 2014 and June 6, 2021. File pic/Atul Kamble

Soon, property tax bills will see another component - a one-time fire service fee - which will be collected from buildings that have been constructed between March 3, 2014 and June 6, 2021. This was announced in a new circular issued by the fire brigade. The circular mentioned that this fee should be taken from developers or owners/occupiers and would be payable just once to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). But while the BMC is yet to compute the charges as it is still collating the data on the buildings, BJP MLA Ameet Satam has warned of a scam worth crores in this. He said it will be possible if the component is levied on housing societies, as according to him, these charges are supposed to be paid by the developer.

The circular issued early this month mentioned that the fire department has to collate data of the buildings constructed between March 3, 2014 and June 6, 2021. The buildings' area has to be identified, and the fire brigade has to draft the due amounts for recovery of the one-time fire service charge. Civic officials said this notice would be issued to developers, but it would also go to the owners/occupiers in case the building has an occupation certificate. It is primarily the responsibility of the developer to pay these charges and if they have defaulted, a strict course of action will be taken.

The annual fee, which is likely to be 1 per cent of the fire service one-time fee, will be added to the property tax bill. The annual fee has to be borne by the residents of the buildings. A senior fire official said, "The BMC is likely to charge about Rs 10 to Rs 15 per square meter as fire service charges. For example, if a building is about 50,000 square meters, then as per Rs 15 per square meter, the developer will have to pay Rs 7.5 lakh as the one-time fee and the annual fee that the building will have to bear is Rs 750 as per the 1 per cent charge."

Satam's allegations

Satam has alleged that fire service charges are to be levied at the time of grant of permissions for the construction of buildings, and the occupation certificate is granted only after the no-dues certificate is issued by all departments. He said, "Why was the fire service charge not levied at the time of grant of permission or time of OC during this period (March 3, 2014 to June 6, 2021)? How did the fire department give its NOC for OC to the building proposals department and how did the building proposals department accept the no-dues certification from the fire department without the fire service charge?"

He has demanded in a letter written to civic commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, "I call upon yourself to initiate a CID enquiry, as this is a huge scam of crores and under no circumstances the demand notice should be issued to societies. The tax should only be recovered from developers concerned and residents should not be burdened during the pandemic because of lapses by our department."

A senior fire department official, said, "While we do not plan on charging societies for the dues of developers, there is a provision to recover them from the owner/occupier as well. However, the annual fee will have to be borne by the building residents and will be part of the property tax. We recently received permissions to charge the fire service fee and hence initiated the process. The permissions granted earlier, were on the basis of the safety measures that have been carried out."