PCMC sends Tata Motors notice for Rs 259 crore tax dues on unregistered properties

The PCMC officials have alleged that Tata Motors has been refusing them entry inside its plant located on Telco Road to inspect the unregistered properties for tax assessment.

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The logo of Tata Motors Ltd. is displayed on a Tata Safari Storme sport-utility vehicle (SUV) on display inside the Prabhadevi Concorde Motors India Ltd. dealership in Mumbai. (Image source: Bloomberg)

The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has sent Tata Motors Ltd (TML) a notice for tax dues amounting to Rs 259 crore on alleged unregistered properties. The PCMC officials have alleged that the global automobile company has been refusing them entry inside its plant located on Telco Road to inspect the unregistered properties for tax assessment.

“We have served two notices to Tata Motors. One is for Rs 194 crore and another is for Rs 65 crore. The notice was served on June 25. We have given them 21 days to register their objections. After that we will initiate further action,” PCMC deputy commissioner Smita Zagade told The Indian Express.

Zagade said Tata Motors has constructed some structures inside its plant between 2008 and 2019 and has so far failed to register them with the civic body.

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PCMC officials said they were neither able to assess the tax on these properties nor get to know how many properties and structures were constructed or extended. “Our officials went several times to the plant, but they were stopped at the gates and were not allowed to enter inside by the security officials,” Zagade said.

“We were repeatedly told that senior officials will look into it, our headquarters will look into it and so on. We got such vague replies. It is difficult to establish contact with the relevant authority of Tata Motors,” she said.

As a result, Zagade said they took the help of satellite images to find out the exact number of structures set up inside. “They have set up structures on at least 8 hectares of land. They include parking sheds, canteen, offices etc,” she said. After PCMC showed the Tata Motors officials the satellite images, Zagade said they submitted a sanctioned plan and map. “Based on these documents, we have assessed the tax dues and served them the notice,” she added.

When contacted, a Tata Motors spokesperson said, “Tata Motors is a law-abiding corporate citizen and conducts its operations in compliance with applicable policies and regulations. Tata Motors has been paying the due property tax to PCMC since its inception, in respect of its properties at Bhosari. In FY 21-22 also, Tata Motors has paid the property tax for the first half of the year as per the bills issued by the PCMC. As is the normal practice, property tax is being assessed by the PCMC for some of the buildings in Bhosari.”

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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