The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), which began a drive last month to filter out property tax defaulters within the jurisdiction of the civic body and recover the dues from them, is yet to retrieve around Rs 184 crore from about 1 lakh property holders.
Addressing a press conference here on Friday, GMC mayor Mrigen Sarania said the civic body has been able to recover about Rs 84 crore property tax since it began the drive last month.
“The city dwellers have extended their cooperation and have paid their dues. Around 1 lakh dwellers are yet to clear their dues. A waiver of 30% will be given to the tax defaulters till January 31. It was 50% till December 31 last year,” he added.
The GMC made it mandatory for the city dwellers to link property holding numbers with the electricity consumer number in a bid to filter out the tax defaulters. The mayor informed that in the last one month, over 1 lakh electricity consumers have linked their property holding numbers with the electricity consumer number.
He added that the civic body has been facing low revenue generation for the last couple of decades due to the inactive strategy of the officials for which it has failed to deliver proper service to the city residents
The civic body has collected around Rs 123 crore revenue from all verticals as on Thursday in the financial year of 2022-23, said Sarania. It earned Rs 115 crore revenue in the year 2021-22 and Rs 109 crore in 2020-21.
Sarania in December had said power supply will be disconnected if the consumers do not link it with property holding numbers and pay the dues by December 31 last year.
However, the announcement evoked strong reactions as linking holding number with electricity consumer number does not fall under the grounds for disconnection in the Electricity Act.