LMC starts targeting big house tax defaulters

LUCKNOW : Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has started targeting big house tax defaulters all over the state capital. After warning a five star hotel in Gomti Nagar and beating drums (dugdugi) in front of the hotel for recovery of house tax dues worth Rs 65 lakh on Saturday, the LMC has now acted against a popular mall and sealed one of its gates on Sunday.

At present, the mall has dues of Rs 49 lakhs.

This action led to panic among the mall management and they paid Rs 30 lakh within half an hour, following payment the seal was removed by LMC. The mall management has promised to pay rest of the amount within next two days.

Notably, the municipal corporation has constituted a policy to ‘name and shame’ the commercial as well as residential defaulters, who have dues worth more than Rs 1 lakh by beating drums outside their properties and pasting notices on their gates.

Municipal commissioner Indramani Tripathi said, “We had warned the big defaulters earlier and served them notices. LMC has always cooperated with these business establishments but they keep on ignoring the tax payment.”

The corporation is planning to target other prominent hotels and malls if they don’t clear their house tax dues this week.

Tripathi said, “The house tax target is increasing every year, but the number of properties remain same. If they don’t pay their taxes on time then all the development work like road construction, drain cleaning, sewer cleaning etc, will suffer.”

Zonal officer of zone-V Rajesh Singh said, “LMC has tried different methods to force defaulters into paying their dues, but yielded nothing. The corporation has failed to recover dues worth crores from many defaulters, despite several notices. A lot of defaulters are reluctant to receive the legal notices. For such people, the strategy is to paste it on the doors of their residential or commercial complexes.”

Chief tax superintendent Ashok Singh said, “The arrears of house tax and user charges are mounting with each passing day. LMC has to recover more than Rs 300 crore from the defaulters. Everyone knows that the financial condition of the municipal body is not good. That is why such desperate measures are required. We are left with no other choice but to do something different to make the defaulters pay.”

He also said that a majority of defaulters abscond from their commercial establishments and residences whenever the LMC team try to hand them a legal notice.