BMC to impose 15 % penalty on tax evaders

Kolkata: Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will impose 15 per cent penalty if the house owners do not clear all property tax arrears by September 30.

The decision was taken at the monthly meeting of the civic body held recently. The civic body had sent several notices to the defaulters requesting them to clear the dues at the earliest.

But, the move failed to yield results. Now, the civic authorities will sent the notices asking the property owners to clear the arrears by September 30 failing which 15 per cent penalty will be imposed.

The development work carried out by the civic body is badly hit because of paucity of funds and collection of house tax arrears worth several crores of rupees will help to tide over this problem.

Because of court cases, the civic body could not collect property tax properly for many years.

Now, as the legal wrangle is over the civic authorities will launch drives to collect property tax dues. The money collected from tax dues will be spent to maintain the infrastructure as well as implementation of the new schemes.

The civic authorities have also decided that from now onwards like property tax, the people will get birth and death certificates and trade license fees. The building plans will be given on line and training has been imparted to the employees for smooth implementation of the scheme.