Mumbai: BMC cracks whip on property tax defaulters

As part of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) drive to recover pending property tax from defaulters, the civic body has taken action against 27 tax defaulters and has attached five establishments across the city for auction.

In 2018-19, the income from property tax was estimated at Rs 5,206.15 crore. As per the Assessment and Collection department of BMC, around Rs 3,681 crore is pending from 3,23,861 defaulters. The maximum number of defaulters and amount is from Goregaon area with Rs 423 crore, followed by Bandra with Rs 260 crore.

In March alone, the BMC initiated action against 27 tax defaulters and proposed for the auction of five properties. BMC owes Rs 14.62 lakh from them. Of the five properties, two are commercial while three are open plots.

In addition, the BMC has also attached and filed FIRs against 13 defaulters from whom the BMC owes Rs 30.5 crore. The civic body has also disconnected water and electricity supply of nine properties. It has prepared a list of 3.23 lakh property tax defaulters, action against whom will be initiated in the first phase.

Speaking about it, a senior BMC official said, “We will start initiating strict action against major defaulters. In addition, a LIDAR survey of all properties revealed that there are over 33,000 deviations or alterations which is also expected to increase our revenue. We are expecting a Rs 500 crore revenue jump through the survey.”