MARGAO: Rupees four crore, seventy three lakh and twenty thousand; and still counting.That's the amount due to the Margao municipal council (MMC) by way of house tax and shop rentals.However, for the recovery team of the MMC headed by Anil Bandodkar, it's an arduous, yet thankless job to trace the thousands of houses and deliver demand notices to the defaulting owners.

"It's not an easy task by any standards. Yet, for the last one year or so, we have managed to recover substantial outstandings, as we have succeeded in persuading the defaulters to pay up. On an average, an amount of 35-40 lakh is being recovered every month," said an officer of the taxation department, who is a part of the recovery team.

What has added to the problems of the recovery team is that in many cases, the addresses of the house owners as entered in the MMC records are either wrong or illegible.

"It happens so very often that we climb up stairs upto the third floor only to find that somebody else is staying in the given address. We then have to make enquiries and track down the real owner's house to deliver the demand notice," an official said, requesting anonymity.

Accounts and taxation officer, Damodar Yelekar, when contacted, attributed the issue of incorrect addresses to the "faulty" procedure being followed by the MMC years ago.

"This may have happened because the occupancy certificates were issued first and the assessment for house tax was done much later, perhaps without even physically verifying the addresses. This has also led to many houses escaping the tax net. However, we have done away with this method now. Assessment of houses for the purpose of house tax is now done at the time of issuing the occupancy certificates itself," Yelekar told TOI.

As regards the steps taken by the MMC to expedite the recovery process, Yelekar said that tough measures will be taken against the defaulters soon.

"We have issued demand notices to several hundreds of house owners who have accumulated huge arrears of house tax. They have been given a time of upto 15 days to clear the tax bills. However, if they fail to do so within this time, 'warrants of distress' will be issued to them and a further 15 days of time to pay up.

If they still fail to cough up the money in that period, the MMC will be then free to attach the property of the defaulter in a bid to recover the outstanding. The chief officer has already issued necessary instructions in that regard to the taxation department," Yelekar said.

The MMC is also facing a rather odd situation on the house tax front. While there are around 40,000 households that are assessed for house tax, sources said, there would be at least 15,000 to 20,000 more houses which do not have any house numbers. The MMC's attempt at bringing those unassessed houses into the tax net a few years ago ended in a fiasco as the task was aborted mid-way.

If Margao municipal council cannot find houses in its jurisdiction, who can be expected to? It is the council that issues occupancy certificates and asses the houses for tax purposes. If they can't find the houses it implies that inspections were never carried out. It is not enough for the administration to now attempt to set things right, what is required is the political will to collect the huge amount of outstanding tax arrears. Only then will the exercise bear fruit.