ONGOLE: The Ongole Municipal Corporation appealed to taxpayers to come forward and pay their pending housing or vacant land tax dues in single payment mode before March end in order to avail of interest-free benefits. The OMC officials have collected around 60 per cent of the pending tax amount so far.
With 60,898 houses falling under OMC limits, Rs 40.91 crore is the only housing tax out of the annual tax demand of Rs 55.35 crore. So far, Rs 27 crore, which is 60% of the housing tax demand, has been collected by the civic body so far.
According to the authorities, the remaining Rs 13 crore housing tax needs to be collected from the remaining 23,392 taxpayers before March 31. “We have collected Rs 27 crore of the housing tax and we are confident that we will collect the remaining amount soon,” Ongole Municipal Commissioner told TNIE on Tuesday.
Further, the commissioner ordered the revenue department officials and ward secretariat staff to conduct a special drive on a daily basis with the concerned municipal ward staff. “Issue notices to the house/ property owners whose tax dues are pending for a long time. Create awareness among the citizens about the utilisation of tax amounts for providing infrastructural facilities to the community,” the civic body chief told officials.
On the other hand, the OMC Commissioner recently issued notices to 14 ward administrative secretaries who collected less than 50% of their respective municipal wards' total house or property tax. The OMC chief M Venkateswara Rao conducted a review meeting with all 70 Ward- Secretariats Administrative Secretaries and inquired about the progress of housing tax collection in their respective wards.
The commissioner discussed the difficulties the municipal ward secretariat staff are facing in collecting the housing tax dues.