The total property tax owed to the civic body has gone up to Rs 8,500 crore despite several initiatives introduced by the administration to recover these dues.
This year, nearly 41% property owners did not pay the tax within the August 2 deadline. Those who paid promptly by this deadline were eligible for discounts and other perks.
Ajit Deshmukh, head of the property tax department of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), said: “The civic administration has taken steps like sealing properties of defaulters and auctioning properties to recover the levy.”
Yet, out of around 12 lakh property owners liable to pay the tax within the city limits, around 5 lakh have not yet paid this year. “The defaulters include small as well as big tax defaulters. Many residential property owners have not paid their taxes. But the number of defaulters from commercial establishments is high,” said a senior PMC official.
Civic activists say that the only solution is to take stringent action on defaulters.
“The PMC has introduced amnesty schemes for tax defaulters a number of times. This has given the wrong message to society. Many people who have taken advantage of amnesty schemes again defaulted on the tax. The administration should focus on strict recovery rather than providing relief to defaulters,” said Vivek Velankar of Sajag Nagrik Manch.
According to PMC data, PMC has sealed 1,400 properties of tax defaulters in the last financial year and so far this year. It has also recovered Rs 100 crore from some owners who paid the dues after the sealing process started.
The properties of those defaulters who did not pay even after sealing process began will be auctioned, an official said, adding that most of these were commercial properties.
Before attaching a property, PMC explores several options such as issuing notices and sealing it temporarily. PMC takes the property into its possession and adds its name on the 7/12 abstracts only if the dues are not cleared even then. After attachment, it auctions the property via an online bidding process.
The property tax department earns PMC Rs 1,800 crore to Rs 2,000 crore per year from property tax. It has set a target of Rs 2,318.15 crore for property tax collection in 2023-24. The administration also expects to get nearly Rs 300 crore from the water tax collected from residential properties as a component of property tax taking the total expected revenue from property tax to Rs 2,618.15 crore.