AGRA: More than one lakh property owners in the city have been issued notices by the Agra Municipal Corporation (AMC) for not paying house tax for their residential or commercial premises. A two-week deadline has been set for them to pay their dues or else they will face action, according to civic body officials.Besides private properties, the list of tax defaulters include several government institutes such as Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Institute of Mental Health and Hospital and others.According to AMC record, there are 1,000 property owners in the city who have not deposited any tax for the last 20 years or more. As many as 30,000 property owners have not paid house tax for the last 19 to 17 years and 20,000 for the last 15 to 16 years.According to sources, more than four lakh property owners have dues pending on them.So far, the AMC administration has issued notices to one lakh property owners who have not paid house tax for more than 10 years. More notices are being issued for speedy recovery of pending dues. Notices have been pasted outside the premises of major defaulters.According to additional municipal commissioner Vijay Kumar, “We have identified property owners who have not been paying house tax for the past several years. We are in the process of issuing notice to all of them. Strict action will be taken against major defaulters if they fail to clear the pending dues within two weeks.”The Agra Municipal Corporation (AMC) administration, which has an annual target of collecting Rs 55 crore as house tax, has so far managed to levy just Rs 31 crore. Over the next two and a half month, civic body officials will have to recover Rs 24 crore as tax to complete the target.Earlier this year, the state government had directed the municipal corporations to become self-reliant by increasing overall revenue generation and spending funds accordingly. Following this, the municipal board of councilors had set Rs 50 crore as the targeted income from house tax. In the revised budget, municipal board increased the house tax target to Rs 55 crore.Municipal commissioner Arun Prakash has warned revenue department officials of strict action in case of negligence towards recovery of house tax. Officials have been directed to deal strictly with tax defaulters. Individual targets have been assigned to them.

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