AMARAVATI: The Andhra Pradesh government has branded ace shuttler and the pride of India, P V Sindhu, a “tax defaulter”!
A sum of Rs 1.41 crore has been shown as “cumulative default amount” under Vacant Land Tax in the name of P Venkata Sindhu Badminton Academy and Sports School at Chinagadili near Visakhapatnam.
The Andhra Pradesh government gifted the two-acre land to Sindhu in June 2021 for setting up the P Venkata Sindhu Badminton Academy and Sports School.
On the Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration’s tax dashboard, Sindhu’s Academy is listed at No. 65 among the “Top 100 Defaulters”, who owe a gross amount of Rs 761.31 crore to various Urban Local Bodies in the state.
The CDMA dashboard gives the impression that the Padma Bhushan-awardee shuttler has not paid the VLT from the second half of 2019-20 to the second half of 2023-24.
But the CDMA data is clearly false, as the state government’s own order establishes.
Way back on February 17, 2023, the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department issued an order “waiving off Vacant Land Tax, along with penal interest, amounting to a total of Rs 56,75,562” on the two-acre land of Sindhu’s Academy for the period October 1, 2019 to February 8, 2023.
Sindhu’s Academy applied for VLT assessment on January 4, 2022 and accordingly, Rs 7,83,918 has been fixed as half-yearly VLT with retrospective effect from October 1, 2019.
From October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2022, the total VLT was calculated at Rs 54,87,426. On that, a “late payment penalty” of Rs 1,88,136 was also levied, taking the total due to Rs 56,75,562.
The previous Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government waived the total amount on a request from Sindhu.
In fact, the then Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration had recommended that the total VLT and penal interest be waived off “till the construction of the building is completed.”
But the waiver was limited till February 8, 2023 only, as the GO indicated.
Nobody in the (GVMC) seemed to have cared in over two years to update their records and remove Sindhu’s Academy from the tax defaulters’ list or, if at all, post the correct amount.
The amount will not be Rs 1.41 crore even if the GVMC officials claim she hasn’t paid VLT since the second half of 2023-24.
After the first allocation, the state government had in March 2023 allotted another one acre parcel of land in an adjoining survey number for Sindhu’s Academy.
On March 15, 2024, the state government sanctioned Rs five crore as ‘seed fund’ for the construction of Sindhu’s Academy and Sports School.
For a few months now, construction activity has been going on the site.
When contacted over the issue, the Director of Municipal Administration P Sampath Kumar, who was previously the Commissioner of GVMC, told factoids that he would get the issue verified and take corrective action.