Intensifying its drive against property tax defaulters, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has sealed and cut the water connection to 20 commercial properties over the past two days in Zone-III, which houses many posh colonies and commercial hubs.
More than 10 teams have been constituted to carry out the sealing drive.
Five properties were sealed in Sector 27, 28, 40 and 45 on Thursday. The teams visited South Point Mall, Super Mart 1-2, DLF Phase-4 , DLF Phase-2, Sector 29 and Sector 44 and sealed 14 properties on Friday.
While Sector 29 houses restaurants and bars, Sector 44 is an institutional area.
“During this sealing drive, the enforcement team collected more than ₹70 lakh as property tax on the spot from the defaulters. The total number of property owners in Zone-III is 1,08,000, of which 65,000 property tax payers have cleared their dues,” said Y.S. Gupta, Joint Commissioner, Zone-III
The Haryana government had introduced amnesty scheme for property tax defaulters on February 2. Under this scheme, property owners were offered a rebate of 25% on principal of property tax and 100% waiver of interest and penalty.
The scheme, which was earlier open till March 31, has been extended till April 30.
Mr. Gupta said that it was for the first time since the formation of the MCG that a sealing drive was initiated against property tax defaulters.
“As per MCG Commissioner V. Umashankar, the sealing drive will continue till April 30. The properties will be de-sealed only after settling of the dues,” said Mr. Gupta, adding that the civic body had so far collected over ₹300 crore as property tax for 2016-17.
70 properties sealed
The MCG has sealed around 70 properties in all its zones put together over the past two months.
As per the MCG website, the civic body has collected ₹96.68 crore as property tax over the past one month (March 15-April 14) from all four zones. The zone wise break-up for the past one month is: Zone I (₹9,98,93,461 ), Zone 2 (₹27,29,99,611 ), Zone 3 (₹35,81,65,436 ) and Zone 4 (₹23,56,88,874 ).
Property tax and stamp duty are two major sources of revenue for the civic body.
