4K defaulters of property tax to face action soon in Jalandhar

The property tax department of the Municipal Corporation had sent notices to 4,000 property owners who did not pay taxes for the last one year. Despite that, none of the owners paid the tax and now the department will take a ‘strict’ follow-up in the matter.

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The move comes after the meeting in which Mayor Vaneet Dhir asked all 12 property tax inspectors to give a report. He asked the number of notices that were served by each inspector and the action that was taken after that.

Under the procedure for taking action against the defaulters, inspectors of the property tax wing visit different areas to recover the tax. The defaulters, who have not paid tax, are served notices under Section 112 of the Municipal Corporation Act. They have to file a reply within three days, failing which another notice of sealing the property will be served under Section 138 of the Act.

The target for this financial year is Rs 51 crore and until now, a collection of over Rs 35 crore has been made. Only two months are left for the financial year to end and the department is still far away from achieving the target. Department officials said the elections were also held thrice last year which is why they could not make the expected recovery.

During the last financial year, the target was Rs 43 crore and the recovery was Rs 41 crore.

The One-Time Settlement (OTS) scheme of the Municipal Corporation for the recovery of property tax that came in September 2023 and continued till March 2024 also did not evoke good response. The civic body had recovered Rs 5 crore in the beginning from the government properties, but there was not much response from commercial properties.

The scheme was implemented to provide a major relief to defaulters who are otherwise supposed to pay 20 per cent penalty and 18 per cent interest on the outstanding principal amount of all previous fiscal years.

An MC official of the property tax department said as per the instructions by the Mayor, a detailed report was being prepared by the inspectors and they will be following up with those who haven’t paid taxes. “We are committed to recovering the maximum property tax to increase revenue,” he said.

Mayor Dhir has also been focusing on increasing the revenue by departments. So, during his first meeting with the property tax department, he specifically focused on recovering property tax.