Noida: Several residents of Noida’s Sector 105 have alleged to have received the Labour Department’s notices demanding cess even after it was already paid by original house owners or should have been served about a decade ago or much earlier.
“This step of sending notices to even those who have already paid their dues is completely wrong. I wrote to the district administration once over a month ago and once as recent as about four days ago. Even elderly citizens, who have already paid their dues, have been sent notices. RWA president Sharma alleged that some families, who purchased their houses through resale recently are being burdened with liabilities dating back several years. We plan to take up the matter with the labour commissioner. For commercial properties, the cess applied irrespective of the construction cost. “I am willing to accept that there has been a delay. It would indeed have been better if this had been resolved sooner. However, we are not demanding any interest or imposing any penalties. We are simply asking for the cess applicable to the specific year.
Around 800 of the 1,044 houses have received the cess notices in mid-September, according to the Sector 105 RWA. The department appears to have relied on a 2017-18 survey without any on-ground verification. Construction costs are being inflated, and heavy interest and penalties are being imposed,” said Deepak Sharma, president of the Sector 105 RWA citing the case of his 60-year-old brother who received a notice. Vipin Kumar Jain, a resident of Sector 105, said, “I moved here in 2022. Yet, we received a notice demanding ₹ 95,000. Under earlier regulations, labour cess was applicable to residential houses built before 2021 if the construction cost was ₹ 10 lakh or more, according to officials. The cess is calculated at 1% of the total construction cost, officials said. Rakesh Dwivedi, additional labour commissioner, said the notices were not specifically targeted at Sector 105 but they were based on a 2017 survey conducted across Gautam Budh Nagar district. For instance, if a building plan was approved in 2017, we are seeking the payment corresponding to the survey conducted in 2017,” he said.
The house was already built when I bought it from a previous owner, who told me that all dues had been paid.
