Vijayawada: Vijayawada Municipal Corporation Commissioner Dhyana Chandra HM on Tuesday said that the vacant land owners in Vijayawada city must pay the Vacant Land Tax. He said while the tax demand from vacant lands in the previous financial year was Rs 237 crore, the actual collection stood at only Rs 19 crore, which is very low, he stated.
Dhyana Chandra chaired a special committee meeting held at the VMC office. The committee has been formed to address the pending dues of VLT in the city and increase the revenue of the VMC. Land owners of several hundred vacant land sites in Vijayawada city are not paying the VLT for a long time. Earlier, with the approval of NTR district collector G Lakshmisha, the Vacant Land Tax Committee was constituted and its first meeting was held on Tuesday. Dhyana Chandra during the meeting proposed a collaborative approach involving the VMC Revenue and Town Planning Departments, along with the District Revenue Department and the District Stamps and Registration Department to collect the addresses of the vacant land owners and serve demand notices. The VLT committee has initiated steps to obtain vacant land documentation from VMC departments and share them with the Stamps and Registration Department. Based on registered sale deeds, the authorities will identify landowners and issue tax notices using the addresses recorded in official documents.
The commissioner has instructed for a preparation of a detailed list of tax defaulters, categorised by circle, ward, and secretariat, identification of all vacant landowners and issuance of tax notices, strict enforcement of tax payments from all landowners, regardless of their current location and initiation of legal proceedings against those who fail to clear outstanding dues.
One major reason identified for the poor recovery is that many landowners are unaware of their pending dues. The VMC staff could not trace the addresses of the many landowners due to change of homes. Many owners of the vacant lands are living in other cities, other states and other countries and it made the VMC staff to trace their addresses and send the tax notice.
The meeting was attended by RDO K Chaitanya, District Registrar PVV Durgaprasad, Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) G Srujana, Chief City Planner Sanjay Ratnakumar and other officials.
