PUNE: Housing societies in Pimpri Chinchwad‘s Wakad area have received notices urging them to pay their pending NA taxes. A member of a housing society on Pink City Road in Wakad said that the letter was a surprise as the Eknath Shinde-led govt in October announced that the tax was scrapped.
The state govt, in October 2024, in a cabinet meeting, decided to abolish the non-agricultural (NA) tax for properties. The abolition of the NA tax, imposed during the British era, has been a long-pending demand of housing societies federations. It is levied on societies that come under the municipal corporation or municipal council limits. However, gaothan areas were exempted from the tax.
Vishal Titre, a member of Riddhi Siddhi Heights Society of Wakad, said his society gets a demand notice to pay NA tax from the local talathi office every year, and they have been paying it.
“We read in the news earlier this year that govt has scrapped this tax. We were not expecting the demand notice this time, but we got it again last week. The notice says the society should pay the dues within seven days.”
Sushant Kulkarni of Alliance Nisarga White Lilly Housing Society in Wakad said his society had not got any such notice in the past, but for the first time received it this year.
“Many of our society members do not know about the NA tax. We got such a notice for the first time even though our society is eight years old. When we looked it up online to know more about it, we came across a news article that said that govt has scrapped the system of NA tax. Many of us don’t know if the notice is genuine,” he said.
A senior official of the district administration said that the decision to abolish the NA tax was taken in a cabinet meeting a few days before the assembly election, but the govt resolution was not released.
“We have not received guidelines from govt instructing us to stop collecting NA tax. As per our routine process, we start sending demand notices for NA tax in August each year, and the recovery process goes on up to March next year,” an official from Mulshi tehsil office told TOI.
He added that govt or the district collectorate will share guidelines to be followed by the officials whenever a decision to stop collecting NA tax is implemented.
“Since we have not received any new instructions so far, we are following the standard procedure, and notices are being issued from local talathi offices,” he said.
