In order to catch property tax defaulters, the civic officials have started a door-to-door survey in areas falling under block 34. There are around 34,000 properties in this block, but tax return is being filed by owners of 15,000 properties alone. The defaulters are now being told to pay tax since 2013-14 when property tax was introduced.
In block 34, areas falling in Haibowal like Durgapuri, Joshi Nagar, Jassian Road, 22 feet road and inner colonies are included. The teams have covered around 200 properties in the survey. The residents who are caught for non payment of dues sometimes said he or she lived in 100 square yard property, which is tax exempted. But the authorities said this is applicable only for single-storeyed house and that owners of double storey or even triple storey house are also using this excuse.
MC superintendent Vivek Verma said, “The block 34 in zone D covers many areas so more defaulters are in this block. The employees are going door-to-door for checking and are asking the owners to produce previous receipts of returns, which were filed by them and if they fail to do so, they are being told to come to the MC office for clearance of dues.” He said the survey is bringing results.
Meanwhile, the survey also identified that building plans of most of the houses here were not approved by the civic body. The officials ask for copy of the approved building plan and when there is none, owners are asked either to get their plan approved after paying fine at building branch or they should clear the property tax since 2013-14 if they did not clear it even once. Those who have paid tax once or twice are being asked to clear the pending dues.
Notably, the officials had failed to achieve the target of Rs 110 crore revenue from property tax in the previous year — last year they could recover only Rs 92 crore — while for this year it is estimated at Rs 130 crore.
