Aurangabad, March 3:
The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) will now be taking penal action against its employee as well as the property-holder if the payment made through cheque against property tax or water tax gets dishonoured by the bank, hereafter. The penal amount varies from Rs 100 to Rs 2,000.
As per the AMC record, the property tax outstanding is Rs 427 crore, and the water tax is Rs 347 crore. The AMC had intensified the drive to recover maximum dues before the conclusion of the financial year. The special task force is sealing the properties (residential or commercial), but to evade action, many citizens play a trick by clearing the dues through cheques on the spot. However, the AMC had observed that the cheques are frequently dishonoured by the various banks with remarks like an absence of adequate fund in the account of property-holder, improper signature, the difference in mentioning the amount of tax in figures and words, the mistake in dates, issuing non-CST cheques, change in ink, absence of signatures on cheques etc. As a result, despite recovering the money, AMC's exchequer deprives of adequate funds.
With a view to curb the incidents of issuing cheques intentionally, to evade the action of sealing the properties by the civic teams, the assessor and collector of tax (ACT) and deputy commissioner Aparna Thete tabled a proposal before the AMC administrator A K Pandey recommending penal action against the property-holder as well as the AMC personnel, considering both of them responsible, in the process of cheque payment. AMC personnel is held responsible for accepting the cheque without verifying it. The administrator approved it.
Cheques of Rs 1 cr got dishonoured
It is learnt that cheques valuing Rs 3.25 crore got bounced during the last year. In the past couple of months, 228 cheques valuing Rs 1.06 crore got dishonoured. The AMC served notices to 89 property-holders, while some of them had deposited the money in cash, said Aparna Thete.
Proposal for penalty
The AMC would collect a penalty of Rs 100 if the amount of dishonoured cheque is till Rs 1,000; Rs 200 if the amount of dishonoured cheque is between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000; Rs 300 if the amount of dishonoured cheque is from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000; Rs 1,000 if the amount of dishonoured cheque is between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2,000 if the amount of dishonoured cheque is Rs 1 lakh and above.