NASHIK: Around 1.75 lakh consumers of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) in Nashik city are on the radar of the property tax department of the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC).
After a request from the NMC, the state power utility provided data of its 7 lakh consumers in the city. The NMC had sought the details to find out all the properties that are not on record of the property tax department and avoid paying any tax.
Accordingly, the MSEDCL shared a list of 7 lakh consumers in the city with the civic body. Out of this, over 5.25 lakh properties are registered with the property tax department.
An NMC official, while talking to TOI, said they will now start physical verification of these properties to verify whether property tax has been levied on these 1.75 lakh properties. “We will bring all the unregistered properties under the tax net. We are already in the process of deploying a private agency to carry out a survey in the city in order to find out properties not paying any tax,” the official said.
“The annual revenue of the civic body through property tax will increase by Rs 30 crore even if 50,000 of the 1.75 lakh properties are brought under the tax net,” the official added.
NMC has set a property tax collection target of Rs 210 crore for the financial year 2023-24. So far, it has managed to collect property tax amounting to Rs 150 crore. — Rs 30 crore more than the property tax collection during the corresponding period last financial year. Last year, the civic body had collected Rs 187 crore towards property tax.
As per the guidelines of the 15th Finance Commission of the Centre, it is mandatory for the NMC to register 10% growth in property tax if it has to get the government grant. This is the reason the civic body is going all out to meet the property tax collection target set for the current financial year.