As many as 4.43 lakh Nagpurians collectively owe Nagpur Municipal Corporation Rs 470 crore towards property tax, reveals data compiled by NMC’s property tax department. The accumulated property tax dues were calculated for the last 10 years.
In the last financial year (2018-19), of the 5.31 lakh property owners, only 3.22 lakh have paid property tax to the tune of Rs 198.26 crore.
According to the data compiled by the department, property owners in Laxmi Nagar zone owe NMC more than Rs 107.19 crore.
The highest number of property tax defaulters (79,222) is from Ashi Nagar zone, with Rs 65.98 crore dues. It is followed by Lakadganj zone (59,914), where such owners have collectively defaulted on Rs 64.86 crore. These owners haven’t paid tax for a period ranging between more than five to 10 years.
Similarly, in Mangalwari zone, 44,192 property owners have not paid the tax and they too owe NMC Rs 55.88 crore. Dhantoli zone has lowest number of defaulters. It has around 7,760 property owners as defaulters and collectively their arrears amount to Rs 31.59 crore. Amount-wise, Gandhibagh zone has least tax dues where 11,579 property owners have not paid tax to the tune of Rs 9.41 crore.
Sources in the NMC’s accounts and finance department admitted that the civic administration needs to improve property tax collection as it is a main source of revenue generation for the civic body.
Assistant municipal commissioner Milind Meshram said the civic body has taken several initiatives to improve tax collection and giving ample opportunities to the defaulters to clear the dues.
He also said that many property owners have defaulted on the tax after raising objections in the calculations, while many big defaulters have moved court against the department. The department needs to speed-up the process to settle such objections, he admitted and stated that the department has asked zone offices to accelerate such pending cases.
To a query that the department is only auctioning properties of small tax defaulters, Meshram refuted the allegation stating that the civic body is focusing more on big defaulters.
