PUNE: The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has identified over 3,500 properties with pending tax dues exceeding Rs3 or 5 lakh. Acting against this, tax department officials have sealed over 1,000 such properties in the last three days, a senior official said.
Out of the 3,500 properties, 1,900 have reached tax arrears above Rs5 lakh and 1,648 have reached arrears over Rs3 lakh
Collectively the arrears of these properties amount to over Rs362 crores, resulting in PCMC’s strict action against the owners.
Avinash Shinde, the deputy municipal commissioner and head of PCMC’s tax department, told TOI, “A majority of these residential properties are rented out by the owners. They have not paid tax for over four years. Last year, we only cut water supply to these properties due to tenants, but this time we’ll seal them and request MSEDCL to cut power.”
The civic body has begun auctioning 43 previously sealed properties whose owners failed to pay dues despite repeated notices. Out of over 6.3 lakh properties registered with PCMC, officials have collected Rs564 crore in property tax so far this financial year (2024-25).”
“Property tax recovery slowed down as most staff was deployed for Lok Sabha and assembly election duties. However, officials have now been directed to expedite action against defaulters, and we hope an increase in collections in the coming days,” Shinde said.
Last financial year (2023-24), PCMC achieved a record Rs977 crore in property tax collection. This financial year, collections are Rs70 crore lower, but the civic body aims to bridge the gap by year-end. Shinde said that the cessation of user charges collection from this year as per govt directives will impact overall tax revenues to some extent.
PCMC, during the earlier property assessment survey, had identified 2.51 lakh properties that were not registered with the tax department. Civic officials have already initiated a process to bring these properties under the tax ambit. “The owners of over 1.13 lakh of these properties are yet to submit necessary documents, and they have been served notices for the same to comply within seven days,” a PCMC official said.
Source Homevior.in
