474 defaulters owe PMC Rs1,218 crore in property tax, reveals RTI query

Hindustan Times: National: Wednesday, 02 September 2020.

PUNE Officials of the Pune municipal corporation (MC) are facing a tough time trying to recover the dues of property tax from defaulters.

As per the information sought in a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by civic activist Vivek Velankar, as many as 474 defaulters in PMC have property tax dues worth Rs1,218 crore, the amount of each defaulter is more than Rs one crore.

Velankar said, “According to PMC data 474 property owners have more than Rs one crore dues and the total amount is Rs 1,218 crore. Among them, 50 cases are pending in the court and the total amount of these legal cases tax owners is Rs375 crore.”

He said, “Most of these cases are of various mobile companies who had challenged the dues in the High Court. If the law department of the PMC follows up these cases on time, the civic body can get more revenue through property tax.”

Vilas Kanade, head, property tax department, said, “There are some cases which have double registration for the same property. The total amount for such cases is around Rs136 crore. PMC administration is in a process to put the proposal in front of elected members to delete the double registration.”

Velankar said, “Under RTI information, PMC accepted that they had various dues with government offices and various government departments like Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune (IISER), Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) and irrigation department.”

“PMC property tax department has written a letter to the water department that instead of paying the water fee to the irrigation department they will recover the tax dues of Rs53 crore from them,” he said.

Velankar said, “PMC is playing bands in front of citizens’ homes every year. Instead of concentrating efforts for small recovery, ideally, the PMC should focus on big defaulters.”

Hemant Rasne, chairman, standing committee, said, “We are making all efforts to increase the revenue this year. We have deployed 500 additional staff in the property tax department to recover the dues.