Stung by a cold shoulder response to the recently launched amnesty scheme, the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) has decided to reintroduce dhol-taasha (drumbeats) - its tried and tested formula of shaming property tax defaulters in a musical way.
“Drummers will be roped in who will accompany the recovery teams to wake-up those who have failed to pay property tax despite several reminders. Drums will be played and public announcements systems will be used so that the entire neighbourhood knows who hasn't been paying their taxes. As of now, our thrust will be on major defaulters owning commercial properties,” said deputy civic chief Sanjay Shinde.
The move is one of the steps lined up in a series of measures to be taken to ensure that defaulters clear the dues immediately. MBMC’s tax department will also publish and display names of defaulters and if needed seal and auction properties which have already been slapped with warrants. The property tax collection currently stands at Rs.124 crores However, the challenge before the civic body is to recover another Rs. 122 crore in the remaining less than two months to meet its demand in the current fiscal. Meanwhile, only 5342 people have availed the benefit of the amnesty scheme by contributing Rs.3.76 crore excluding the discount amounting Rs.65.88 lakh, so far.
Under the amnesty scheme, 75 per cent waiver in the penalty amount is given to the defaulters to encourage them to clear their dues. A large number of willful defaulters especially commercial property owners owing lakhs of rupees manage to elude action by bribing lower rung employees.
“We have trained our focus on chronic defaulters by updating the existing software which digs out an area-wise list of pending payments,” said an official. There are more than 2.69 lakh residential and 60,886 commercial tax payers in the twin-city.
