Aurangabad, Feb 12:
The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) municipal commissioner A K Pandey today has announced granting of
75 per cent discount, in the interest and penalty, levied upon property tax dues, till March 31.
As reported earlier, to gain the political mileage in the forthcoming municipal corporation election, the guardian minister Subhash Desai had instructed the civic chief to grant the discount. The civic chief announced the discount and mentioned that the guardian minister had instructed him to do so.
Earlier, the AMC office-bearers and corporators of the past body were demanding to grant discount or concession so that the people could deposit the tax money in large number, but the AMC administrator was reluctant to accept the offer claiming that there is no money in AMC exchequer due to poor collection of taxes during the Covid-19 pandemic situation in the city. Pandey was also of the opinion that the response from citizens to the amnesty scheme was not satisfactory.
Hence during the recent visit of the guardian minister to the city, the office-bearers once again drew his attention towards the core pending issue.
There are 2.52 lakh properties, including 33,000 commercial properties on AMC record in the city. The target collection of the property tax and the water tax for the year 2020-21 is Rs 468 crore. Of which, the civic officials succeeded in collecting property tax and water tax of Rs 92.32 crore only. The collection is very poor; therefore, it is a major challenge for the civic officials to enhance the collection figures by March-end.
Earlier, the AMC had offered a discount in property tax from the period December 23, 2019 to March 31, 2020. A total of 14,412 property-holders deposited tax of Rs 51.97 crore. The AMC discount in penalty and interest (2 per cent each) offered to citizens was Rs 7.76 crore.