400 buildings in Pune have been sealed because of unpaid property taxes.

PUNE: Since the city authority has sealed over 400 such structures since May of this year, residents who have not paid their property taxes for a number of years may lose their homes.

“Notices were sent to the property’s owners and occupants, reminding them of the payment.” However, despite repeated summons, they have not paid the tax, and hence these properties have been sealed.

“The upcoming course of action, including auctioning these properties, will be discussed in due course,” said Ajit Deshmukh, head of the property tax department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

According to PMC authorities, the municipal administration must recover approximately Rs 8,000 crore from defaulters. This comprises major tax evaders such as industries, commercial complexes, IT parks, and hospitals, as well as mobile tower tax.

“Many tax defaulters have taken the notices of recovery to court.” In many cases, the PMC lacks the authority to take forceful action. “This is causing recovery delays,” stated a senior PMC official.

According to the official, the civic administration has also received complaints about tax being levied on a single property many times. According to the official, as a result, the total amount of tax to be recovered seems to be exaggerated and inflated, and the administration should take action to write off such inflated tax amounts in order to acquire true tax recovery data.

As stated by civic activists, the PMC does not target significant defaulters and instead offers tax exemptions through various schemes.

“A lot of errant defaulters are not paying the tax.” They think that the PMC will offer some tax savings and a reduction in penalties. According to Vivek Velankar of the citizen’s group Sajag Nagrik Manch, “the implementation of amnesty schemes has frequently delivered the wrong message to taxpayers.”

The civic government resumed a tax recovery drive with musical bands last year. The bands are hired to play loud music in front of tax defaulters’ homes in an attempt to embarrass them into paying their debts. Property tax collectors accompany the bands in order to collect payments on the spot.

In the fiscal year 2022-23, PMC collected Rs 2,000 crore from property tax. For fiscal 2023-24, the municipal administration has set a target of Rs 2,318 crore.