MCG commissioner Narhari Singh Banger on Wednesday ask officials to attach, seal and auction the properties of top defaulters, who have not paid property tax dues despite receiving notices from the civic body.An senior official said that a list of top defaulters was already prepared since they were issued notices and the civic body will soon initiate the process to take action against them.
“The process to attach, seal and auction the properties of the property tax defaulters will be initiated. We have already sent them notices to deposit their dues. Moreover, joint commissioners should scrutinise at least 50 rejected applications of the property tax corrections in their respective zones to minimise the scope of any unnecessary rejection. An action should be taken against the staff if the applications of property tax data are rejected without any valid reason,” said the commissioner in the meeting.
Assessment bills sent out by the civic body have been returned by a majority of residents, who pointed out that the bills did not correspond to their properties.
Officials from the corporation said the civic body recently sent a total of 505 notices to defaulters to pay up their dues, but most of them claimed there were discrepancies in the data.
The civic body is estimated to generate an income of around Rs 500 crore from property tax, however, only Rs 187 crore has been collected under this head so far this fiscal year — amounting to 37% of the target.
A total of 49 notices were sent out in zone 1, 114 in zone 2, 166 in zone 3 and 176 in zone 4 in December last year.