The standing committee of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has given the green light to the annual budget proposal for 2024-25, endorsing the decision not to increase property taxes. Instead, the PCMC is directing its efforts towards collecting taxes from owners of unregistered properties identified during the ongoing survey.
Civic officials have initiated the registration process for these unregistered properties, issuing notices to approximately 20,000 property owners. Owners have been granted a 21-day window to respond to the notices. Additionally, a decision was made to provide a 5% concession to those who pay the registration amount within a month, aiming to incentivize property owners to register their properties promptly.
Pradeep Jambhale Patil, the additional municipal commissioner of PCMC, stated, “We did not propose any hike or tax this year to prevent a burden on people and instead will focus on issues related to unregistered properties and measurement and change of usage of the property.”
As part of a comprehensive exercise initiated last year, the civic body surveyed 5.1 lakh properties to assign a unique code to each one. The survey revealed around 1.6 lakh unregistered properties, with officials anticipating this number to increase to 2.5 lakh by the survey’s completion at the year-end.
PCMC civic officials are optimistic about generating Rs 1,000 crore in revenue from property tax this year, with expectations of an increase to Rs 1,500 crore next year following the registration of previously unregistered properties.