Sonepat MC serves notices on 400 defaulters over property tax

Mukesh Tandon

Sonepat, October 23

The Municipal Corporation, Sonepat (MC), has started tightening the noose around property tax defaulters in the MC area. The MC has served notices on 400 defaulters, who owe it Rs 3 lakh and above property tax for many years. The MC has also decided to seal the defaulters’ properties if they fail to deposit their arrears.

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Notices have been served on the defaulters with the warning that they deposit their outstanding property tax within a week and if they fail to do so their properties will be sealed. Monika Gupta, Commissioner, MC

As per estimate, Rs 175 crore property tax has been pending for many years. As per sources, the top defaulters in the MC records are — Anant Raj Limited (Rs 24.18 crore); Police Lines (Rs 21.37 crore); mini secretariat(Rs 2.13 crore); Dharamwati School (Rs 1.65 crore); Devi Lal Colony (Rs 1.43 crore); Harcharan Singh in Devru village (Rs 1.23 crore); Sector 26 government institution (Rs 1.16 crore) and gurdwara at Geeta Bhawan (Rs 1.11 crore).

The MC fixed the target to recover Rs 25 crore as property tax during this financial year 2022-23, but the recovery is very slow against the proposed demand. As per the old property data, 1.44 lakh properties were registered in the MC records, of which 1,631 were agriculture units, 10,927 commercial, 2,017 industrial, 386 institutional, 8,583 mix-use units, 6,272 residential flats, 75,484 residential houses, 43,110 vacate plots and 693 units under the special category. But as per the new data, which has been uploaded recently on the NDC portal, there are 1.74 lakh properties registered in the MC records.

Rajender Singh, Zonal Taxation Officer (ZTO), said, the MC had set the target to recover Rs 25 crore as property tax in the current fiscal year, but it had received only Rs 2.97 crore, which was only 12.5 per cent against the proposed target. Notices had been served on around 400 defaulters, who owed Rs 3 lakh and above property tax to the MC and notices had been served on them with the warning that they deposit their dues within a week, he added.

Notices had been served on the defaulters several times, but they did not pay any heed and the arrears were rising gradually in the MC records every year, the sources added.

Monika Gupta, Commissioner, MC, said, “We have identified 400 property defaulters in two categories —150 defaulters who owe over Rs 10 lakh and 250 defaulters who owe Rs 3 lakh or above property tax — as per the old property data. Notices have been served on the defaulters with the warning that they deposit their outstanding property tax within a week and if they fail to do so, their properties will be sealed,” the Commissioner said. Besides, the state government has also announced an interest waiver scheme for the people. They can deposit their property tax till December 31, avail the benefits of the scheme and deposit their pending property tax, the Commissioner said.