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PMC extends property tax payment deadline to June 3 as server crashes
PUNE As the website of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) crashed due to excess load, the civic body has decided to extend the deadline till June 3 for payment of property tax to those who want to avail rebate
PUNE As the website of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) crashed due to excess load, the civic body has decided to extend the deadline till June 3 for payment of property tax to those who want to avail rebate. Earlier the deadline was May 31, but many people could not make the payments due to server issues.
Many said they were trying to pay the property tax amount online, but the website could not work till late evening on May 31.
“I was trying to pay my property tax online but at the last step, the PMC website was not accepting the cash. With the extension in deadline, it will be helpful for me to pay the tax online again,” said Manish Deshmukh, a resident of Sahakar nagar.
The PMC offers a rebate between five to 10 per cent in property tax to those paying it from April 1 to May 31. After server issues, the PMC on Wednesday announced that “people have been given an extension of three days to pay property tax with five to 10% discount.”
This year within the first two months of the financial year, the civic body has managed to collect property tax worth ₹939.89 crore, which is close to ₹193.88 crore more than the previous year.
According to Ajeet Deshmukh, incharge of the PMC’s property tax department, till May 31, the PMC was able to collect ₹939.89 crore which was ₹193.88 crore more than the previous year’s collection of around ₹746 crore during the same period. “Besides rebate, the PMC also provides an accidental insurance cover of ₹5 lakh for maintaining no dues. The civic body managed to get ₹132.67 crore in the last two days on Monday and Tuesday with most citizens preferring to pay through cheque or cash at ward offices,” he said.
Till May 27, PMC had received ₹751 crore of which as much as ₹466 crore had come to PMC through online payments, many citizens have been availing of the service since the pandemic. ₹214 crore was paid through cheque deposits and ₹70 crore through cash transactions, an official said.
It starts charging a penalty of two per cent per month from July 1 for those not paying the taxes on time. Deshmukh said that the PMC has so far provided a discount of ₹16.60 crore to regular taxpayers this year.
Many citizens this year have complained of getting exorbitant bills without any intimation from the civic body. Even as the outgoing elected general body of the PMC had rejected the proposed hike in the property tax, people have got excess bills mostly because the civic body has stopped offering a discount of 40 per cent to some parts.
The PMC officials said the civic body has also started collecting taxes from properties in the 23 villages that were recently merged into the civic limits.
Last year too, PMC extended the deadline till June 23 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Property tax collected
₹751 crore till May 27
939.89 crore till May 31
Rs593,270 property tax owners paid dues so far
₹132.67 crore tax collected in two days (May 30 and 31)
June 3 Extended deadline for those who want to avail rebate in tax
(Source: PMC property tax department)
