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With ₹25.5 cr in pocket, Mohali MC exceeds 2022 property tax target
The Mohali MC authorities managed to collect over ₹27 lakh property tax on Saturday, which was the last day to pay property tax without a 10% penalty
The municipal corporation (MC) collected around ₹25.5 crore property tax in 2022, exceeding the target of ₹22.14 crore set for the previous financial year by around ₹3.36 crore.
The authorities managed to collect over ₹27 lakh property tax on Saturday, which was the last day to pay tax without a 10% penalty. Officials said the civic body has not received tax for around 16,000 of the total 42,130 taxable properties in Mohali.
Speaking of the collections, a senior MC official said, “We had set a target to collect ₹22.14 crore this financial year, which was met on September 30 last year. We had issued notices to around 2,500 chronic defaulters who despite reminders didn’t pay taxes for long. Now, we will make a fresh list of such defaulters and will take stern action including a 10% penalty and even sealing of the property in January itself.”
GMADA pays ₹1.68 cr tax
The Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) on Saturday paid ₹1.68 crore of the total ₹6.9 crore sought by the civic body in form of property tax.
While GMADA officials claimed that they paid ₹1.31 crore to the MC before 2015, the civic body officials maintained dues other than.
Addressing the same, a GMADA official said, “We have issued a cheque of ₹1.68 crore to the MC and had paid ₹1.31 crore earlier. Thus, we have paid property tax to the tune of around ₹3 crore.”
“We have asked the MC officials to reconcile their accounts with us for the remaining dues. We have sought the lists of the properties charged by MC in these years. After verifying the figures with our records, we will pay the remaining amount,” the official added.
MC officials, meanwhile, accused GMADA of not revealing the total lists of properties owned by them falling under the civic body’s jurisdiction.
“We have repeatedly sought the list, but they never gave us the details for the reasons best known to them. We have also issued notices to other government departments who have long defaulted to clear their property tax dues. We are struggling to clear the salaries of the staff.” an MC official said.
Municipal commissioner Navjot Kaur, meanwhile, said, “We have received ₹1.68 crore from GMADA and will hopefully get the remaining taxes soon after reconciling the accounts.”
GMADA, as per the MC, has the highest pending dues and has been defaulting on tax payment since the financial year 2014-15. GMADA records, however, show the tax was paid until 2017.
Notably, Punjab housing and urban development minister Aman Arora had on Tuesday directed the GMADA to clear complete property tax dues before December 31. The MC had at the time accused GMADA of defaulting on pending dues to the tune of over ₹200 crores, forcing it to spend from its own pocket on the maintenance of the city. The minister had asked GMADA authorities to pay 25% of total expenditure on annual maintenance works being done by MC.
Other property tax defaulters include the police department, which has to pay over ₹2 crore, the DC office which owes the MC ₹30 lakh and the Labour Bhawan, which has pending dues of ₹5 lakh.
The MC has been struggling to get the amount cleared from other government offices, with an official saying, “We got a communique from the Mohali SSP office that they are not liable to pay complete property tax for the buildings used by different police wings here in the city. We got a similar reply from the DC office too.”
Panchkula MC collects ₹2.21 property tax in a month
Panchkula/Ambala Taking full advantage of the state government’s scheme allowing one-time waiver of interest on property tax dues and arrears of previous years, the Panchkula municipal corporation has collected ₹2.21 crore of tax in December month.
Notably, the urban local bodies department had announced the scheme where the residents could deposit their property tax from the year 2010-11 to 2021-22 without interest by December 31.
Deputy municipal commissioner Deepak Sura said property-owners were being informed about the scheme for the last 45 days and many properties were sealed — adding that others can pay the pending tax till January 31 and take benefit of a 50% waiver on interest.
Mayor Kulbhushan Goyal, meanwhile, said dues worth ₹50 crore were yet to be collected, adding, “We have to recover ₹17.5 crore from 17 institutions like hotels, banks, government offices, Gymkhana Club and petrol stations that owe more than ₹5 lakh each. Many of them have been served notices.”
In Ambala too, the civic body recovered a huge amount of pending tax.
Sadar Zone municipal council secretary Rajesh Kumar said they have received ₹1.5 crore between April 1 and December 31 including ₹4.25 lakh on the last day of submission.
