List of property tax defaulters to be published from Friday: Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi

In a WhatsApp message to media persons in this regard, Bedi said the list of defaulters was a follow-up of the ‘mission recovery’ the government launched a few days ago to collect the outstandings from different categories of power consumers.

Bedi said she has held a joint meeting with officials of local administration department and also the president of the Puducherry Traders Association Shankar earlier in the day at Raj Nivas.

It was decided at the meeting that the list of defaulters owing property tax to the local bodies be published from Friday, she said.

Over Rs 15 crores as property tax were due to the municipal bodies, she said.

Bedi had said the government would publish the names of defaulters in newspapers and also announce them on FM radio channels.

Also, Bedi said that as against 15,000 shops in the union territory, only 3,000 shop owners were found to have trade licence.

The rest would be covered through a special drive so that the revenue of local bodies would improve instead of depending on the government for grants, the Lieutenant Governor added.

Review meetings would be held every month to ensure full coordination and improve financial position of the local bodies, she said.In a related development, The opposition AIADMK on Thursday hailed the steps initiated by Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi in realising accumulated power tariff arrears by adopting “name and shame” approach.

AIADMK leader Anbazhagan talking to reporter here also demanded that the LG should take a policy decision to collect tax arrears of several departments of the territorial administration.

The AIADMK had been urging the government to collect dues from various categories of power consumers and also those owing taxes to municipalities, Anbazhagan said.