Nagpur: The much hyped amnesty scheme, “Abhay Yojana-2017” launched by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) to recover pending dues of Property Tax amounting to around Rs 191 crore, is proving to be damp squib.
The scheme, launched on March 16 in two phases of 8 days each, could recover only Rs 6.10 crore from 7462 defaulters till March 22. The beneficiaries were waived off penalty of over Rs 2.26 crore.
Today (March 23) is the last day of the first phase of the amnesty scheme to avail 90 percent waiver in penalty. Those defaulters who made the payment of pending dues in one instalment were to receive benefit of 90 percent waiver in penalty. The poor response to the scheme may continue with second phase as well.
The NMC had plans to recover arrears of whopping Rs 191 crore. The rebate will be 75 per cent in Phase-II for paying dues between March 24 and March 31. It may be recalled that NMC is charging 2 per cent penalty every month on arrears of the property tax. However, the defaulters of illegal properties would not get any benefit from this scheme.
The defaulters, who filed cases or filed application for re-inspection of their property tax, will have to withdraw their application and only then they will be eligible to avail benefit under scheme. The property owners are barred from filing any case or demanding reinspection of their demand after taking benefit under this scheme.
However, the amnesty scheme seems to have been cold shouldered by the defaulters as the local body is expected to mop up around Rs 7.8 crore by March 31, the last day of “Abhay Yojana-2017” as against the target of Rs 191 crore.
The Zone-wise collection of Property Tax dues paid by defaulters till March 22 is as follows:
- Laxmi Nagar Zone 1: Rs 81,03,337 (1198 defaulters)
- Dharampeth Zone 2: Rs 69,64,260 (678 defaulters)
- Hanuman Nagar Zone 3: Rs 33,50,698 (273 defaulters)
- Dhantoli Zone 4: Rs 2,81,30,869 (338 defaulters)
- Nehrunagar Zone 5: Rs 77,35,894 (1043 defaulters)
- Gandhibagh Zone 6: Rs 28,00,544 (401 defaulters)
- Satranjipura Zone 7: Rs 15,01,224 (228 defaulters)
- Lakadganj Zone 8: Rs 52,92,182 (654 defaulters)
- Ashinagar Zone 9: Rs 1,25,86,724 (1641 defaulters)
- Mangalwari Zone 10: Rs 98,89,278 (948 defaulters)
The NMC target of recovering Rs 191 crore in pending dues of Property Tax under the amnesty scheme seems to be a distant dream going by the recovery so far.
