10 institutions to be sealed over property tax default in Panchkula

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, September 7

The Municipal Corporation is all geared up to seal the buildings of 10 big institutions that have reportedly not deposited the property tax even after being served 72-hour notices.

Two buildings each of government offices, schools, showrooms, hotels and factories will be sealed. The instructions in this regard were given by Mayor Kulbhushan Goyal at a meeting of the Revenue and Realisation Committee held at the office of the corporation here today.

As many as 14 important issues were discussed in the meeting. Officials informed the Mayor that tax worth several crores was yet to be recovered. The Mayor then instructed the officials concerned to seal the buildings with tax arrears of Rs5 lakh or more.

Goyal also instructed the officials to snap the connection of towers of mobile companies that did not deposit the fee.

He said till now, out of the total 292 towers, fee had been deposited for only 37. He told the officials concerned to give a 48-hour notice to the violating mobile companies. He said if the five big companies, including Jio, Vodafone, Idea, and Airtel, did not deposit the fee on time, 10 of their connections would be discontinued in the next three days.

The Mayor said the MC was yet to collect the fee worth crores from these companies for laying cables and added that the companies did not even take permission before laying mobile lines in many sectors and industrial areas. He directed the XEN to take action against them.

He said parking fee would be introduced for spaces in the Sector 14 and Sector 20 markets. He said Rs10 would be charged for a day and tenders would be floated. He said the DC’s office has instructed withdrawing the fee for parking spaces of Sector 8, 9 and 10 markets.

He said the tender process for evening street food in Sector 8 would soon be started. Instructions have also been given to submit the drawing of the evening food street in Sector 20, 26 and MDC in September.

The Mayor further told officials to serve notice on those who had not deposited the development charges and demolish their properties if they still did not submit the fee. He said there was no approval for commercial buildings in villages and they would be demolished. He directed the officials to initiate steps for the collection of funds through advertisements to increase the income of the MC.