Chandigarh MC identifies 5,500 owners not paying property tax

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Rana

Chandigarh, March 21

With an eye on bringing more owners within the property tax ambit, the UT Municipal Corporation has detected around 5,500 new residential and commercial properties that are liable to pay the levy.

Around 4,400 applicants were traced by analysing data through which it was found they were using the water connection, but had never paid the property tax.

The corporation also studied data of property owners provided by the Estate Office, which revealed there were around 400 residential and 450 commercial property owners who had not been paying the levy. The MC had earlier received the details of 36,000 property owners from the UT Estate Office.

Those found on the list will be served property tax bills in April. Besides, the civic body has sent the data of around 2.15 lakh households that have electricity connections but are not on the property taxpayers’ list, to the Chandigarh Smart City Limited for technical evaluation.

The UT Engineering Department had earlier sent this data containing house number and power connection to the MC. The latter has sought smart city’s assistance.

At present, there are 1.50 lakh property owners who were supposed to pay the tax. In the ongoing financial year, the civic body has garnered over Rs 66 crore in property tax — Rs 17.27 crore from residential unit owners and Rs 49.52 crore from commercial property owners.

In the current financial year, over 1 lakh property owners have paid the tax. Others have been served notices or their properties attached (commercial connection).