The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has extended the Abhay Yojana for a month and now citizens can get waived off in penalty for delayed payment of property tax. The two-month scheme to get a rebate in the penalty for delayed payment of property tax ended on January 31.
Now, citizens can pay the property tax till March 1 to get the benefits. In the last financial year, the civic body had collected Rs 159 crores from 19,891 property tax holders under the scheme.
Initially, the civic body had announced the Abhay Yojana for two months from October 1 to November 30 to provide relief to the citizens of Navi Mumbai. However, after completion of the scheme period, the civic received request from citizens for an extension. Following requests from citizens, the civic chief Abhijeet Bangar extended the scheme for two months and gave time till January 31, 2022.
Due to recurring restrictions and drop in income sources, many citizens made request to civic body for another extension. “We received requests from many citizens for another extension and as there are two months to the financial year, we provided them one more month to pay taxes,” said Abhijit Bangar, the municipal commissioner.
Property tax is one of the major sources of revenue for the corporation. Under the scheme, the civic body provides a rebate of up to 75% on the penalty amount of arrears of property tax.
Now till February 28, 2022, if the property tax holders pay the entire arrears of property, they will get a 75% discount on their penalty amount. The civic chief has appealed to citizens to take advantage of this opportunity of extension till January 31. “Property tax holders can visit www.nmmc.gov.in to avail the benefits of Abhay Yojana and contribute to the development of the city,” said Bangar.
Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, the civic body had managed to collect over Rs 540 crore as property tax during the financial year 2020-2021. The collection fell short of the budget estimate of Rs 630 crore. However, the Abhay Yojana launched on December 15, 2020, helped the civic body collect around Rs 159 crore of the total collection.
