Chandigarh MC to crack whip on property tax defaulters with over Rs 50,000 dues

To recover the outstanding amount of property tax, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has started issuing notices to defaulters for attachment of their property.

Sources said the MC has prepared a list of the defaulters, who owe it more than Rs 50,000. The MC has so far issued over 45 notices to the defaulters by preparing a fresh list of defaulters after calculating the tax on the basis of revised rates.

The decision to issue fresh notices for property attachment has been taken after it was noticed that many defaulters have not deposited the tax despite receiving the notices.

As per an MC officer, the defaulters are given time prescribed in law for paying the amount. In case the amount is not paid within the stipulated time the MC will start attaching property.

As per Section 138 of the Municipal Act, the Commissioner is authorised to attach, sale or seal the property of a tax defaulter.

The civic body’s efforts are yielding results, as the it has collected a record Rs 81 crore in property tax from April 1 till now for the current financial year. This is a significant achievement as the MC had collected Rs 59.34 crore in the last financial year.

The number of the property tax assessees have also increased. Against 71,678 assessees in the last financial year, the number has risen to 74,558 this fiscal.

Besides Panjab University, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI) and Punjab Engineering College, there are many government departments against whom crores of the amount is pending. Departments of Punjab, Haryana and UT are delaying the payment for different reasons. Recently, the PGI and railway station had paid a significant portion of the pending arrears to the MC after receiving the notices.

The increase in the property tax recovery has come at a time when the Municipal Corporation is facing the worst financial crisis. Due to the financial crunch, all development works have been stopped. The MC has failed to re-carpet the roads for years and has failed to increase its revenue, despite taking multiple steps in the past few years. The situation has come to such an extent that the has no money even for changing the streetlights.