Stung by the low recovery rate, in terms of property tax, the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBM) led by newly appointed civic chief C.K.Dange has geared up to initiate a series of measures to enhance collections in the twin-city.
Averaging Rs 181 crore as the annual revenue generation, statistics reveal that there are a total of 3,48,477 lakh assessed (commercial, industrial and residential) properties in six designated wards of the MBMC.
Few weeks are left for the end of the current fiscal and the MBMC has so far managed to net around Rs 121 crore which averages 67 per cent of its recovery target. The tax department has identified 899 defaulters having an outstanding of more than Rs 1 lakh and owe the MBMC a total amounting Rs 24 crore.
In a multi-pronged strategy, the MBMC will display the names of major defaulters at prominent locations across the twin-city, this apart from disconnecting water lines and uploading the list of such names on its official web portal. And if this is not enough, drummers and professional brass bands will be hired to wake up those who have failed to pay property tax arrears despite several reminders.
“Property tax is a major source of revenue for any civic body and mounting arrears would adversely affect developmental works due to crash crunch, thus depriving honest taxpayers of their justified rights,” said Dange. With cumulative amounts and ghost entries piling up, the total revenue generation is pegged at around Rs 246 crore including, open land tax, outstandings and recovery through a penal tax which occupy a lion’s share in the civic ledger.
