The BMC is gearing to auction as many as 65 properties of property tax defaulters in the city. Property tax defaulters owe the BMC a total of Rs 16,624 crore. More than Rs 10,000 crore of this outstanding amount is under litigation though.
The ward that tops in property tax outstanding is G-South (N M Joshi Marg, Prabhadevi, Worli) with an outstanding of Rs 1,708 crore as on March 31, 2022. The G-South Ward is followed by H-East (parts of Bandra, Khar, Santacruz, Vile Parle), which had an outstanding of Rs 1,500 crore. The ward with the lowest outstanding amount is R-North with Rs 128 crore. Of the total outstanding in this financial year, the civic body has managed to recover about Rs 612 crore till September 11.
Officials said many of the defaulters have paid around 50% of the outstanding amount but more than Rs 10,000 crore is under litigation.
“The reasons for high outstandings vary in each of these wards. The BMC initiates action in all cases of non-payment of property taxes. The purely recoverable amount in the outstanding will be very little. The outstanding amount also includes penalties,” said a civic official.
Meanwhile, in order to auction the properties of defaulters, the civic body will appoint an agency that has the required experience. It has sought an expression of interest for the exercise.
“We will be carrying out an auction of 65 properties spread across wards, out of the over 2,800 attached for defaulting on property tax. We are auctioning mostly commercial properties which have clear titles and there are no disputes. This is to ensure there are no hurdles in the auction process. Properties of owners who are engaged in litigation with the civic body have not been touched,” said the official.
Ravi Raja, former BMC leader of the Opposition, said, “The BMC should carry out settlements with large property tax defaulters to recover at least some of the outstanding amount.”
In 2021-22, the BMC managed to collect Rs 5,792 crore as property tax. Among all the BMC wards in 2021-22, the highest amount of property tax that is Rs 529 crore was collected from K-East Ward, followed by G-South’s Rs 527 crore. The BMC will have to forgo Rs 462 crore for the property tax waiver for homes below 500 square feet.
There are around 5.2 lakh properties in the BMC’s jurisdiction.