Property owners in Pune cry hoarse over inflated bills

Pune: Alleging that thousands of citizens in Pune have received excessive property tax bills Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat has appealed to property owners to join hands and approach the consumer forum. Meanwhile PMC officials have denied the allegation and have made it clear that minor mistakes in the bills would be corrected on the spot if PMC is approached.

Grahak Panchayat executive president Suryakant Pathak informed dna that he himself approached deputy commissioner Hemant Nikam who is in-charge of the tax department in the PMC with the copy of a bill and payment. Pathak said that despite the fact that after depositing the amount for the property tax bills for the year 2013-14, the bill for 2014-15 showed that the earlier bill amount was outstanding. Pathak said that thousands of property owners have received such bills with mistakes. 
Nikam told dna that Pathak met him and he has clarified that there are very few property owners with such bills. He said, “If there are mistakes how could we have 4.5 lakh property owners out of a total 7.5 lakh would have deposited amount for the bills without any complain?” He added that a total of 16,351 property owners have paid bills worth Rs 25 crore and had there been any discrepancies, they would have turned up. A few have complained.