Chandigarh MC House meeting today: OTS for property, service tax dues on cards
The proposal has been included in the supplementary agenda to be placed before the MC House during the General House meeting on Friday
The Chandigarh municipal corporation has proposed to introduce a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme to maximise the recovery of outstanding property/service tax dues within the municipal limits of Chandigarh and to alleviate the accumulated tax liabilities of taxpayers for charitable institutions and government and autonomous bodies. The proposal has been included in the supplementary agenda to be placed before the MC House during the General House meeting on Friday.
As per the agenda, the Chandigarh municipal corporation is collecting property tax from government bodies (commercial & residential) and autonomous bodies and a total of 197 charitable institutions. Charitable institutions are functioning on a no-profit-no-loss basis, relying solely on donations for their operational expenses such as electricity, water, maintenance, ration etc. The government departments function to serve the general public by providing essential services and performing core governance responsibilities. Further, the autonomous bodies (PU, PEC, NITTTR) are created by the government to handle certain tasks or achieve specific objectives, which can include research, education, or public services.
The institutions to be covered under the OTS Scheme include charitable institutions, religious institutions, spiritual institutions, government bodies (commercial and residential) as well as autonomous bodies (commercial and residential).
As per the agenda, the institutions which fail to settle dues within the stipulated OTS period will be liable to pay full tax along with interest and penalty from the date of inception which is November 22, 2004. No waiver shall apply thereafter.
Recently, the MC had sent a fresh recovery notice to PGIMER, demanding ₹13 crore in pending property tax. The institute had previously cleared over ₹10 crore of its dues.
Among the other major property tax defaulters of the MC in government institutions include Chandigarh Housing Board’s CE UT (commercial) with ₹16.55 crore pending, Punjab Engineering College (commercial) with ₹10.91 crore outstanding, National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research (NITTTR) which owes ₹3.13 crore and Chandigarh railway station (commercial) which has outstanding dues of ₹2.98 crore.
The Chandigarh municipal corporation has also prepared a proposal for e-auctioning of 75 advertising sites and unipoles in the city. The municipal corporation is expecting a significant revenue boost from this process.
A total of 53 new sites have been recommended while 22 old sites are now vacant.
The chief architect, urban planning department, Chandigarh administration, vide its letter (dated April 17, 2025), has recommended 53 new sites, which include 43 advertising panels and 10 unipoles.
Additionally, 22 sites of the corporation were previously allotted to two agencies under Group ‘A’ and ‘B’. Their tenures expire on October 8, 2025, and August 7, 2025, respectively.
The municipal corporation thus has a total of 75 advertising sites available, which interested individuals, companies, firms and cooperative societies can take through e-auction.
The Chandigarh municipal corporation has proposed a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme to recover outstanding property/service tax dues from charitable institutions and government bodies, aiming to ease their tax liabilities. The scheme will be discussed in the upcoming General House meeting. Institutions failing to settle dues will incur full penalties from November 22, 2004. The MC also plans to e-auction 75 advertising sites for revenue.