Municipal Commissioner auctions government properties to recover outstanding tax dues.

On January 30 Tukaram Mundhe, Municipal Commissioner, ordered the Property Tax Division of Nagpur Municipal Commissioner (NMC) to auction government property in order to recover taxes. After a review of the property tax department, he published the guidance.

Currently, 314 properties are owned by the central government and property tax dues of Rs 37.86 crore are pending. Likewise, in a power-point presentation on 30 January, many State government offices held 146 properties and failed to pay Rs 19.51 crore in NMC property tax, tax department officials told Mundhe.

In addition to informing the municipal head, the tax department told the civic chief about Rs 290.83 crore property tax defaults on the 2,57,237 property owners and Rs 99.07 crore from the 72,309 open plots. The Civic Chief was worried about the slow recovery of property tax.

In addition, he requested the Tax Department’s measures to raise dues from the defaulting property owners. The department told the civic chief of its private property auction initiative to recuperate tax duties. NMC has auctioned 150 properties so far, of which 12 selling deeds have been concluded, while NMC has transferred the ownership rights of 138 properties due to a lack of response from bidders.

In addition, a warrant was also issued to 9,745 owners and a seizure notification was also issued to 2,595 property owners, while a process of auctioning 495 additional properties of tax defaulters was also started by the Department.

In this regard, Mundhe instructed the tax department to focus on improving the collection of property taxes from both private and government property owners. The municipal commissioner said that the department should also launch the auction of government office properties. For a fact, the department must release first warrant notices, followed by confiscation notices and eventually auction government department properties if their unpaid property tax dues are not clear.