PUDUCHERRY: With excise pooling in the second largest revenue, the Puducherry excise department has decided to auction properties of lessees pledged to the department in a bid to recover kist dues of Rs 7.33 crore from 78 defaulters (46 arrack shops and 33 toddy shops) for the lease years from 2019 to 2022.
Despite warning, lessees have not paid the kist arrears till date and hence, as per instructions of the Deputy Commissioner of Excise, it was decided to auction the properties in accordance with the Puducherry Revenue Recovery Act, 1970 by issuing appropriate notices, said Deputy Excise Commissioner T Sudhakar.
A team of excise department tahsildar, the concerned taluk tahsildar, revenue inspector, and village administrative officers will start visiting the properties from April 10 to determine the minimum bid amount. Meanwhile, their lessees been requested to immediately pay the kist dues to save their properties from being auctioned, added Sudhakar, stating that any those interested in the auction public can get the details and documents of the properties from the excise department.
Incidentally, the dues have been pending since 1968-69. At present, Rs 69 crore of kist and Rs 104 crore of interest is due from between 1968-69 to 2018-2019. Every time the department attempted to auction off the properties, the lessees paid a part of the due amount and sought extra time for payment, which the department agreed to. Even after this, defaulters failed to pay up.
The government had attempted to conduct auctions a few times between 2012 to 2018, but due to lack of response the auctions did not materialise. Only two properties got auctioned, which fetched Rs 13 lakh, said an excise department official. He added, people were reluctant to bid as the property so purchased might not result in possession since the defaulters were influential people. Now, the Puducherry excise department is considering waiving off the interest accrued till 2018-2019 and has moved a file seeking approval of the government in this regard, said the official.