Thane: The Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC) ahead of Diwali festival announced the Amnesty Scheme (Abhay Yojana) for the property tax payers between 15th to 31st October, 2022. However, property tax payers from Ulhasnagar have given lukewarm responses to the amnesty scheme, as the Ulhasnagar civic body collected just over Rs 1.65 lakh till October 27, informed a senior civic officer from UMC.
Earlier, the UMC introduction of Capital Value Tax system doubled the property tax bill, which was opposed by all the political parties and the property tax payers. The office bearers from Balasahebanchi Shiv-Sena as well as the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) appealed to the Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to cancel the capital tax value system.
Shashikant Dayama, a social activist from Ulhasnagar said, "The Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde seeing the growing anger of the citizens suspended the capital tax value system. The citizens rejoiced the abolition of the capital tax value system and the Ulhasnagar civic body had to distribute the property tax bill door to door at the old rate. Only 10 crores were collected in the last 7 months by property tax department. Property tax is the main source of income of the UMC. As the department recovered only Rs 10 crore against a target of Rs 110 crore, the department came under fire."
Jamir Lengrekar, deputy municipal commissioner, UMC said, "The UMC commissioner Aziz Shaikh implemented the Abhay Yojana between 15th to 31st October, 2022 in order to collect property tax income ahead of the Diwali festival in order to get the Municipal Corporation out of financial trouble. Interest and penalty will be waived if 100 percent property tax bill is paid before October 31."
Lengrekar further added, "Even after the implementation of Abhay Yojana by the civic chief the citizens gave a lukewarm response to it from October 15 to 27 and property tax of only Rs 1,65,72,052 was collected. In last year the Abhay Yojana launched by the UMC civic chief in the month of March received a huge response from the citizens, and the payment of 80 crore was recovered in just 15 days. A total of Rs 2 crore is likely to be recovered by October 31 and there is a demand by the property tax payers from the UMC to extend a deadline for Abhay Yojana and the civic chief has taken a notice of it."
