Gurugram MC to tighten noose on 3,200 property tax defaulters
Kulwinder Sandhu
Gurugram, March 21
The Municipal Corporation (MC) of Gurugram will tighten its noose on the building owners who have not deposited property tax for the past many years.
Narhari Singh Banger, Commissioner of the MC, has stated that under the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act 1994, it is mandatory to deposit property tax every year for all types of industrial, residential, commercial and institutional buildings and vacant plots located within the limits of the civic body.
As per the MC Act, if a person does not pay property tax regularly every year, the government charges interest at the rate of 18 per cent per annum. Along with this, the legal process to seal and auction the properties of those people who have not paid the property tax for a long time could also be initiated as per the provisions of the MC Act.
In a recent exercise, the MC initially identified at least 3,200 people who had not been paying property tax for the past many years. The notices to recover the dues were served on them, but no response has come from them so far.
There are 682 property tax defaulters in Zone-1, 240 in Zone-2, 1,036 in Zone-3 and 1,262 in Zone-4 of the civic body. The figures could increase as the process to identify the defaulters is still in progress.
Overall, legal action to seal the properties will be taken against 3,200 property owners who owe more than Rs 5 lakh each to the civic body.
According to Banger, one could get the benefit of 100 per cent interest waiver and 15 per cent rebate by paying the pending dues of property by March 31, otherwise, legal action will be initiated against them to recover the dues as per the law.
Banger has stated that the property owners who have not yet paid their property tax should immediately view the property data from their property ID on the NDC portal and self-certify the data and pay the tax availing the benefit of interest waiver and 15 per cent rebate.
He said the MC was also organising special camps in different areas every day to help the property owners. At these camps, services like removing errors in property data, self-certifying property data, payment of property tax on the spot along with interest waiver and rebate were being provided to the property owners.
Meanwhile, a spokesman of the MC has stated that Rs 250 crore has been collected as property tax by the civic body during the current financial year, and efforts were on to recover another Rs 50 crore by the end of this financial year.
