Central and state properties in city owe Rs 91 crore in taxes to Pune civic body

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) which has been under severe cash crunch due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is now urging citizens to pay up their pending property tax.

The civic body has also offered lucrative schemes of up to 80 per cent off on the penalty on pending property tax under the ‘Abhay Yojana’. However, this scheme is not applicable to government institutes which owe about Rs 91 crore in property tax to the civic body.

As per the PMC’s property tax department, the central government has about 92 properties in the city for which it pays taxes to the civic body and these properties owe about 23.85 crore.

Of these for the current year 2020-2021, the PMC received about 2.44 crore from 47 properties while about 60 properties still owe Rs 21.41 crore in property tax to the civic body.

However, the state government owes Rs 76.32 crores in property tax from its 330 properties.

Of them, only 180 properties have paid a total of Rs 6 crore in taxes and Rs 70.32 crore is pending from over 200 properties for the ongoing year.

According to Kunal Khemnar, additional commissioner in charge of the department, the PMC property tax department has been asked to take action even against government departments who have defaulted on the property tax.

“We have even asked them to take action including sealing the properties but only depending on the department. However, due to ongoing elections we will be taking decisions based on the department for example if it is a law enforcement department then we would probably give more extension,” Khemnar said.

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the PMC is considering the situation of the finances of a department and then taking necessary action.

“Similarly ,for private properties too if a firm has been a regular tax payer but could not pay taxes this year due to the pandmice then we would be considerate about that too,” Khemnar said.

The civic body has sealed about 55 properties for defaulting property tax payment as the due tax amount surpassed more than Rs 50 lakh.

Most of the properties sealed are commercial properties from across the city.

The PMC collected Rs 1077.82 crore in property tax from over 6.70 lakh taxpayers in Pune from April 1, 2020.

Last year, the PMC managed to collect only Rs 976 crore in the same duration.