Chandigarh Civic body serves Rs 41 crore property tax notice on PGI

The Municipal Corporation (MC) today issued a notice to the PGIMER, a premier health institution of the region, over property tax dues of over Rs 41.53 crore.

It will soon issue notices to Panjab University (PU), Punjab Engineering College (PEC) and other defaulters. Among the defaulters are 670 buildings of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the central governments.

The MC decided to recover tax from the biggest defaulters after Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria turned down the Mayor’s request to release special grant to the civic body to resume stalled development projects and directed officials to cut down on annual expenses besides increasing revenue from their own sources. The MC has started the process to recover property tax and water dues.

The financial health of the MC has deteriorated as several institutions repeatedly defaulted on tax payment.

Recently, MC Commissioner Amit Kumar issued a warning to major property tax defaulters, mostly government buildings, to clear their dues or face action.

The Commissioner held a meeting with top 10 defaulters in each category —government commercial buildings, autonomous commercial buildings and government residential buildings — and stressed that continued delay could lead to strict action against them. During a meeting of the House on October 30, the MC had revealed that government and commercial buildings owed it Rs 250 crore as property and service tax, which made a significant portion of the annual revenue of the civic body. Out of this, Rs 187 crore is locked in litigation or disputed cases. Residential properties also owe the MC Rs 15.8 crore in unpaid taxes.

Councillors had expressed resentment over the continued default on payment by government establishments. Strict action must be taken against government buildings that fail to pay their dues, the councillors stated.

They emphasised the urgency of recovering dues from these institutions.

Nearly 30,000 commercial units (non-residential properties) in Chandigarh, including government buildings, fall under the property tax ambit. A total of 1,08,372 residential properties in the city are also charged property tax at a fixed rate.