GURUGRAM: The municipal corporation is owed Rs 1,881 crore property tax, of which 15% is owed by 100 defaulters, each of whom has to pay more than Rs 1 crore.
According to the corporation data, 100 major defaulters owe the corporation Rs 288.4 crore. The remaining Rs 1593 crore is owed by 4.9 lakh property owners.
Newly appointed MCG commissioner Ashok Kumar Garg, at the time of joining, told TOI in an interview that the civic body will target large defaulters to increase its revenue. Property tax remains a crucial revenue stream for the corporation, which has estimated earnings of Rs 300 crore from property tax in the current fiscal (2023-24).
In the fiscal year 2022-23, MCG had set the target to generate Rs 500 crore from property tax, but it earned just half of it.
A senior corporation official on Monday told TOI that the defaulters with large dues have been served with multiple notices.
“At this stage, we intend to implement strict measures against the defaulters to secure outstanding payments. Action against them includes sealing their properties, disconnecting water supply, and auctioning the properties if they still fail to pay their property tax,” the official said.
The MCG chief told TOI on Monday that action will be initiated against the defaulters in the next 3-4 days.
“Our focus will be on major defaulters with substantial outstanding payments. We will begin with serving them notices and subsequently take action against them,” Garg said.
Asked about outstanding dues, residents’ welfare associations said many defaulters are unable to pay their dues because of errors in property IDs.
Earlier this year, MCG also received complaints from property owners that their dues were pending due to discrepancies in property ID data. They said that since their contact details, property size and addresses were incorrect, they could not pay the tax.
“The count of property tax defaulters undoubtedly rose over the past two years due to unresolved data inconsistencies. The situation remains problematic when property dimensions are inaccurately recorded, alongside incorrect names and contact information in the system. We have been running from pillar to post to fix the errors in property IDs but no significant work has been done to fix this,” said Pawan Yadav, president of Sushant Lok Extension RWA.
Source Homevior.in
