With the civic administration finding it increasingly difficult to bridge the gap between revenue and expenditure, and complaints relating to poor civic amenities mounting municipal officials on Tuesday targeted owners of rest houses who were not paying the property tax despite repeated reminders.
Notices were put up on many of the apartments used as rest houses on the Ooty-Lovedale road.
The notices stated: “The owner of the building has failed to remit the property tax due to the municipality. Hence action has been initiated to take over the building.”
There were 122 defaulters in just two of the apartment complexes in the town, said Revenue Officer Shahjehan. The amount outstanding was about Rs. 1.58 lakh. All the defaulters were living in various parts of the country including Kerala and Karnataka. He said that among them were actors, very senior police officers, and top industrialists.
Notices served on them were not accepted, and phone calls were not answered.
Hence the crackdown has been ordered.
One or two have not paid the property tax since 2003-04. Assistant Revenue Officer N. Nandhakumar said that if there is no response to the action initiated, the buildings would be forced open and distraint proceedings will be set in motion. The caretaker of one of the complexes, K. Mohan, said that some of the owners have not come for the last 15 years. To a question, he said that most of them were aware of the dues.