Civic body’s one-time settlement plan for property tax fails to deliver

Charanjit Singh Teja

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 17

The civic body has not witnessed significant rise in the property tax collection despite the one-time settlement (OTS) scheme offered by the state government.

However, in this financial year, the Municipal Corporation has recovered Rs21.7 crore as property tax till January 15. In the same period last year, the MC had recovered Rs17.93 crore. The property tax wing of the civic body has been making announcements to inform the public about 10 per cent rebate on availing the OTS scheme.

Around 1.5 lakh properties are taxable in the city, but only 78,000 property owners filed tax return. Officials said despite exemption from penalty and interest, the MC is collecting less tax this year.

Pardeep Rajput, nodal officer of property tax, said, “The OTS scheme is the best offer for residents, but they are not showing interest as per our expectations. We are creating awareness about the scheme of the government. We urged the residents to take its benefit. We have been sending e-rickshaw in each Assembly segment to make the public aware of it.” Mayor Karamjit singh Rintu has also urged the residents to deposit the pending tax till February 26 to get benefit of the scheme.

MC officials said the residents who had failed to deposit their house tax or property tax could get 10% rebate on the principal amount.