Pride Hotel in Chennai sealed for evading Rs 1cr tax and lack of proper license

The Chennai Corporation has decided to take stringent action against hotels, private companies and buildings in the Anna Nagar division, that were evading property tax to the Corporation. In the first phase, officials found upon investigations that a star hotel in Poonamallee High Road, The Pride had no license to run the hotel and had avoided paying property tax worth Rs 1 crore. Following this, the Corporation officials led by S Jaganathan and SS Mahendran, the assistant officers from Anna Nagar Divisional Revenue Department, went to the hotel.

The Pride hotel management attempted to delay the process of sealing the hotel by assuring the authorities of submitting the relevant documents. The Revenue Department officers and officials from Corporation started sealing restaurants operating in the basement and the second floor of the hotel building immediately. They also fixed notices on the doors of the hotel’s rooms and sealed the whole building in the wake of the irregularities. The guests in the hotel were asked to check out immediately.

Revenue Department Officer S Jaganathan explained the Corporation’s move, saying, “We have calculated a property tax of Rs 64 lakh to this hotel for the first half of the year 2006-07 . The Hotel authorities had appealed in the court, to reduce the tax amount. The court reduced it to Rs 11 lakhs in the order. So far, the Corporation has not received any tax amount paid by the hotel. The pending amount comes to Rs 1 crore so far. We also found that they did not have a proper license to run the hotel for the last two years. They haven’t paid any attention to these concerns and never responded to our earlier notices on property tax and the warnings to seal the building.” 

Jaganathan said, “We sealed the hotel on Tuesday for tax evasion. There are several hotels and firms evading property tax to the Corporation, but have paid taxes to the Water Board on time. We don’t know why these firms are cheating the Corporation alone and why they hesitate to pay property tax?”

“The Corporation needs funds to implement projects and services in the city. We are listing down all the firms that indulge in tax evasion. There will be strict action taken on those firms too. If property tax evasion continues, the companies will be put on auction and the tax amount would be settled legally.”

During the raid on Pride Hotel, on account of property tax evasion, the officials from the Corporation also examined the restaurant inside the hotel. They found the restaurant had stale meat and inferior quality vegetables, unsafe for consumption. The officials collected samples of food items to check for their quality in the Guindy Lab. They said, “We will take disciplinary action against this hotel, as we found many irregularities including unhygienic methods of cooking in the hotel.”