Over the past month, PCMC's property tax collection department has been taking action against defaulters, sending them reminders and warning them of confiscating their properties in case of default.THE property tax collection department of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has decided to seize over 1,300 properties whose owners have failed to pay property tax of Rs 5 lakh each despite repeated reminders.
“In the past few days, we have confiscated properties of 21 citizens who failed to pay their tax. Of these 21, 12 defaulters came forward and have so far paid Rs 93 lakh in arrears,” said PCMC Assistant Municipal Commissioner Nilesh Deshmukh.
Over the past month, PCMC’s property tax collection department has been taking action against defaulters, sending them reminders and warning them of confiscating their properties in case of default. The 21 properties that were seized were from industrial and commercial categories.
The tax department has already put out a list of defaulters. Among them, there are 3,850 property owners who have not paid tax even once. Then there are 26,760 property owners who have pending tax amount to the tune of Rs 50,000 or more. There are as many as 1,361 property owners who each owe more than Rs 5 lakh in tax arrears to PCMC.
Tax department officials said there are nearly 5.79 lakh properties in the jurisdiction of PCMC. “So far, we have collected Rs 362 crore in property tax and we aim to intensify our drive further,” said Deshmukh. He said there are as many as 1,361 property owners who each owe PCMC Rs 5 lakh or more in property tax. “We will confiscate their properties this month if they do not pay up in the next few days,” he said.
Residential housing societies where the defaulters owe more than Rs 1 lakh in tax to PCMC will also face similar action of their properties being confiscated. “We are also planning to seize their properties this month,” he said.