Rajkot: In a bid to boost tax recovery, the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has announced a two-month interest waiver scheme on pending property and water tax dues from Aug 1 to Sep 30.According to RMC officials, outstanding property and water tax dues have reached Rs 749 crore, owed by around 1.63 lakh taxpayers, including residential, commercial and govt properties. These are cases where taxes have remained unpaid for more than a year. Officials said nearly 25% of taxpayers fail to pay their dues to the civic body.Mayor Nehal Shukla announced the tax waiver scheme at a conference held on Friday. The civic body said the initiative is intended to encourage defaulters to clear pending dues and help the corporation meet its tax collection target of Rs 520 crore for the current financial year.RMC expects around 56,000 taxpayers to benefit from the scheme this year, nearly 20% more than the 46,587 beneficiaries recorded last year. Based on last year’s response, the corporation estimates it will waive interest worth around Rs 15 crore.Rajkot has around 6.10 lakh registered taxpayers. Following the waiver scheme, the civic body expects the number of regular taxpayers to increase to about 5.20 lakh, raising tax compliance to nearly 85% from 75% last year.Between Apr1 and Jul 31, as many as 63,146 taxpayers cleared their outstanding dues along with the applicable interest. During the previous financial year, RMC collected Rs 446.67 crore against its revised tax collection target of Rs 455.70 crore, with 4.63 lakh taxpayers paying their property and water taxes.Last year’s interest waiver scheme helped RMC collect Rs 79.06 crore in taxes while waiving interest amounting to Rs 12.76 crore. Of the 46,587 beneficiaries, 33,257 were residential taxpayers, 12,636 were from the non-residential category and 694 had unlinked water connections.So far this financial year, more than 3.64 lakh taxpayers have paid Rs 255.78 crore by availing themselves of the early bird discount offered to those who paid their taxes by June 30 for the 2026-27 financial year.RMC has urged taxpayers to take advantage of the waiver period to clear their pending dues, stating that timely payments will help them avoid additional interest and penalties while contributing to the city’s development projects.
