Property tax recovery hit as staff deputed on delimitation duty

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Amritsar, January 19

After achieving the mid-term target in September, the property tax wing did not achieve much during the last four months. The property tax wing staff had collected Rs 25 crore as property tax till September 30. During the last four months, only Rs 3 crore has been collected.

Now, the MC has been collecting property tax with a 10 per cent penalty. During the last few months, the MC identified around 450 defaulter property owners, who did not pay the tax during the past few years. There are some defaulters who didn’t even pay since 2014-15. The MC had served notices under Section 138 of the Punjab Municipal Act to seal the buildings for non-payment of tax. However, the department failed to initiate the sealing drive.

Officials of the property tax wing claimed that staff of the department had been deployed on the duty of delimitation of MC wards. In the absence of required staff to collect tax from field, the MC collected only Rs 28 crore to date.

Daljit Singh, Nodal Officer for property tax, said, “We have already issued notices for sealing the properties. The sealing of properties would be started within one or two days. For current year defaulters, we will issue reminders.”