After receiving a poor response to the amnesty scheme, the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has decided to auction properties of 89 taxpayers for defaulting tax payment amounting to Rs 23 lakhs.
This is for the second time that NMC is auctioning such defaulters properties. Last time such action was taken last month. The auction of the properties is set to be held on February 26 at Dadasaheb Gaikwad auditorium in the city.
Out of the 89 properties going under the hammer, 67 are from the Nashik Road division which has total dues of Rs 13.5 lakhs. Ten properties are from the Cidco division, which has pending dues amounting to Rs 6.5 lakhs while the remaining seven properties are from Satpur division with total dues of around Rs 3 lakhs.
“If we do not get a response from the bidders during the auction of the properties, we will take a call on changing the ownership of the properties in the name of NMC,” said an NMC official.
Last month, the NMC had put on an auction of 44 properties, which had defaulted property tax dues amounting to Rs 50 lakhs. Eight defaulters paid their dues totally worth Rs 3.68 lakh. Hence, an auction for only 36 properties was held in the first week of January with not a single bidder turning up for the bidding process.
In July last year, the NMC had put on an auction of 172 properties with total defaulting taxes amounting to Rs 2.84 crores but even at that time, it received a cold response from the bidders.
“It is difficult to inform about the reasons why people do not participate in auctioning of properties. But sometimes, the titles of the properties are not clear or there have been some loan burdens on the properties,” said an NMC official.
To counter this issue, the NMC will now convert the properties to their names. “If we do not receive a response to the auction of properties for the second time, NMC may take over these properties following approval of the standing committee,” said an official.
NMC has set a property tax collection target of Rs 218 crores for the current financial year 2019-20. So far, they have collected taxes amounting to Rs 118 crores, which is still short by Rs 100 crores.
