NMC to organize special camps to identify owners of open plots

Nagpur: Nagpur Municipal Corporation is facing a huge problem in recovering tax from open plot owners as NMC has no record of their ownerships. Against 1.25 lakh such open plots in the city, NMC is yet to identify owners of 68,250 plots, said additional municipal commissioner Ravindra Thakre. He said the NMC has approached both the city survey offices to identify owners of open plots so that it can speed up the tax recovery.
Addressing media persons here on Friday, Thakre said recently owners of two such plots turned up in the NMC office after their properties were auctioned following defaulting on property tax.

Citing examples, Thakre said one Nirmala Bhoyar owned an open plot in Pannase Layout and had defaulted on property tax of Rs56,274 since last many years. As NMC had no details about the owner, it published a notification about auctioning the property as her tax dues including penalty has crossed Rs1.47 lakh. Following due procedure, recently the NMC auctioned the open land for Rs71.50 lakh. Later, she turned up and expressed her willingness to clear the dues. Not only did Bhoyar clear the tax dues but also paid Rs3.57 lakh to the person who had purchased her property.

To avoid such repetition, the NMC is organizing special camps from February 4 to 16 for all open plot owners for mutation of their properties. Special counters will be opened at all the 10 zones and one at NMC’s headquarters in Civil Lines.

Meanwhile, the NMC has achieved 30% of the Rs509 crore property tax target for the current fiscal. Yet, it has not yet distributed over 1 lakh invoices to the tax payers. “The remaining tax invoices will be distributed by February end and the NMC will achieve target easily,” he said .