NASHIK: The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) is in the process of appointing an agency to carry out a survey of all residential properties that are being used for commercial purposes without seeking the mandatory permission from the civic body.
An NMC official, while talking to TOI, said it is mandatory for the property owners to take permission if they are carrying out commercial activities in residential units and must pay the property tax as per the commercial rates.
“They (property owners) need to obtain a change-in-use permission from the civic body if they use residential properties for commercial purposes or even they rent out their properties to the tenants,” the official said.
“We have observed that there are many residential properties across the city that are being used for commercial purposes sans permissions. Due to this, the NMC is suffering an annual loss of around Rs 20 crore,” the official added.
The private agency, during the survey, will collect details of such properties and submit a report to the civic body. The NMC has already floated a bid for deployment of a private agency.
The agency will also create a database of all the 5 lakh properties in the city with their index numbers as provided by the property tax department along with the cellphone and WhatsApp numbers of the property owners.
“The agency concerned will also distribute property tax bills to all the tax payers in the city. The tender process will be completed soon,” the official said.