The strike began on February 17 and at some places, teachers have been dissuading students from attending school as part of a strategy to mount pressure on the government to concede their demands. (Representational Image)
AS MANY as 87 private schools and colleges of Panchkula, owe a total of Rs 3.6 crore in property taxes to the Municipal Corporation of Panchkula.
In a continued drive of issuing notices to tax defaulters, the Municipal Corporation of Panchkula, will issue notices on Thursday, giving the schools a week to pay their taxes, failing which they will have to face strict action.
“First we will send notices and even call people for personal hearings. We will then proceed to seal their premises”, said Joint Commissioner Sanyam Garg.
The defaulters include several other prominent schools of the district. The top ten defaulters list includes, Unison Public School Hansraj, Jainendra Public School, Smart Champ Little school, Delhi Public School, Doon Public school, Bimla Devi St Michal Smart School among others. While Unison owes almost Rs 64 lakh in property tax, Hansraj owes Rs 54 lakh.
These taxes are for the financial year 2019-20 as well as arrears carried forward.
The Haryana Institute of Speech and Hearing and ITI College also fall under the list of defaulters owing Rs 1.8 lakh and Rs 1 lakh in tax amounts, respectively.
“One week’s time has been given to defaulters. If they fail to comply and submit their dues on time, their properties will be sealed,” said Sumedha Kataria, MC Commissioner.
The MC Panchkula, on Tuesday had issued notices to 1,983 properties of Panchkula for defaulting on property tax which mainly included residential, commercial and industrial properties. The properties owe Rs 8.5 crore as property tax to MC Panchkula.
As of now, the civic body has collected almost Rs 5.12 crore in property taxes. “We had collected almost RS 3 crore by December past year and an additional amount of Rs 2.15 crore has been received since”, added Kataria.
With the financial year coming to an end, the Urban Local Bodies, getting active, had directed civic bodies of various districts to begin the collection of taxes. Faridabad, Gurgaon, Panipat and Panchkula had specifically been asked to start mapping the defaulters and issue notices.