Thiruvananthapuram: With nearly 12 lakh houses extra in the state, a section of experts including environmentalists, say that those owning more than two or three houses should be charged environmental and social cost.
Those who own just one house can go with the regular tax but those owning more than two houses should be made to pay double or treble amount as building tax. This can help in effectively checking the trend of treating house as a commodity for lucrative business and investment.
Unchecked construction activities are putting a huge burden on environment and ecology, besides contributing to natural disasters.
“There are people with five houses in Kerala and they are probably living in Canada or the US. So you have a state where the 2011 revealed that there are 11 lakh houses not occupied. Some gross statistics say the figure may have touched 18 or 19 lakhs now. Imagine you are talking of a state where about 5 lakh people are without houses,” said Sridhar Radhakrishnan of Thanal
According to P.B. Sajan, director COSTFORD, situation has come to such a pass that all the resources are being exploited by those who have money. “If you have money you can loot our resources,” he added.
He said it would not be right to hike tax on building material because the poor person who has to be build house will also suffer. “A family can have a maximum of two houses. If they have more than two houses they should be heavily charged,” he added.
The experts believe that there has to be a fair and frank assessment to find out how such unoccupied houses could be utilised and the tendency of having more than two or three houses can be curtailed in future. The draft Land Use Policy which is lying in the cold storage had suggested legal provisions for vesting the LSG/Revenue Departm-ent with powers to take possession of the houses lying vacant for more than two years and utilise them till the period when the owners demand them for their stay.
If the government shows the political and administrative will to take such stringent measures, the problem of unoccupied houses can be resolved to a great extent.
