Property tax bill delay: SMS failure adds to problem

He said the agency appointed to distribute the bills at the doorstep was given the contract after verifying performance in the past but there were too many people complaining that the bills have not reached them. “There is nothing wrong from the citizens’ point of view to expect bills at their doorstep,” Kanade said.

He admitted that the SMS service did not yield the expected results. “I tried using it and found it not responding on a few occasions. I was told that the problem might be due to extra load on the server,” Kanade said.

After waiting for long and trying the SMS service,Dheeraj Gupta of Sinhagad road said there is very short time left for paying property tax and he could manage to know his bill amount only through internet. “The PMC had delivered the bill the previous time,but I have not received the bill this year,” he added.

The PMC managed to collect a record Rs 20 crore in a day on Wednesday taking the total to Rs 200 crore this month. “Around 50 per cent of the property owners paid their bills in the first two months and availed themselves of 10 per cent discount,” said Kanade. The last day of paying tax is May 31 and thereafter citizens will have to pay 2 per cent penalty.