BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued notices to 364 house owners of the city for not paying holding tax. The notices have been served to people having pending holding tax of more than Rs 10,000. The civic body officials said the total sum to be paid by the defaulters towards holding tax is around Rs 11 crore.
Though notices were issued to these defaulters earlier, they have not complied with it yet. “As the households and property owners did not respond, the civic body has given them February 28 ultimatum to clear their dues,” a BMC official said, adding, “Those failing to comply with the notice will face legal action.”
With the cases of holding tax default piling up, the civic body has decided to initiate a certificate case against the violators as per the provisions of the Odisha Public Demand Recovery Act, 1962. Besides, other action will be taken against the defaulters as per Odisha Municipal Act, 2003, the officials said.
BMC Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Srimanta Mishra said the transgenders engaged for collection of holding tax are visiting different wards every day to collect the pending amount. The members of Swikruti SHG have collected over Rs12 lakh from the defaulters in just two days, he said, adding that their collection which was Rs 3.73 lakh on January 13 increased to `8.65 lakh on January 14.
“We have also collected Rs 34,500 and Rs 9,000 towards trade licence fee and ground rent fee respectively from the defaulters by engaging our central licence squad,” Mishra informed.