Begumpet Airport owes a property tax of Rs. 16.36 crores to the Secunderabad Cantonment Board. This is after the SCB has already collected Rs. 31 crores. The Begumpet Airport proved to be the biggest defaulter of tax in the SCB jurisdiction.
The board has issued a ‘Red Notice’ to the Airport Authorities of India staff, at Begumpet Airport in February to pay the complete property tax and also gave a time period of one month. A senior official of SCB talking to a popular news daily had said, “Till now, no reply has come from them on payment of property tax of Rs 16.36 crore, which is long pending. The notice period is over and at any moment, the airport property will be sealed and attached.”
The SCB records show a total of 46,000 taxpayers in the cantonment. This number includes individual and also commercial establishments. The process of ‘Red Notices’ to property tax defaulters has been on from five months and the SCB by March 31 collected an amount Rs. 15 crores. In November alone, after the Demonetisation began, a total of Rs. 9 crores was collected in old demonetised notes. The official, speaking about this said that they collected Rs. 1 crore more than the 2015-16 fiscal year.
SCB after the first week of March, conducted several raids on commercial establishments including educational institutions, clinics, and shops and sealed the tax defaulters properties. After this the collection of tax improved with the scare of sealing.
The official mentioned that if the Begumpet Airport Authorities fail to pay the Rs. 16.36 crores property tax that is due, they will have to seal off the place. And if they pay it the collection would go up to Rs. 47 crores, which will be the highest collection in the Cantonment’s history.
