Bhubaneswar: The municipal corporation has taken a tough stand against holding tax defaulters and slapped red notices on 284 individuals and establishments on Wednesday.

The identified defaulters owe the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation Rs 10,000 or more in holding tax.

"We have identified the defaulters and asked them to clear their dues before March 31," said deputy municipal commissioner Srimanta Mishra.

Mishra said the notices had been served on the defaulters and they would have to clear the dues by the stipulated time. If they failed, the defaulters will face action in accordance to provisions of the Orissa Public Demand Recovery (OPDR) Act 1962, he said.

The OPDR Act allows filing of certificate cases against the defaulters. If a certificate case is filed against an individual and it is ignored, then the corporation can take stringent steps such as attaching bank accounts and movable and immovable properties till the dues are cleared.

The civic body aims to collect Rs 9 crore of holding tax from these defaulters.

"The holding tax collection has not been good this time due to a few habitual tax defaulters. As we want to maintain the trend of good tax collection, we have decided to take a tough stand on these defaulters," said a civic body official.

In September last year, the housing and urban development department slammed the civic body for poor holding tax collection. Chief secretary A.P. Padhi held the review meeting and directed the corporation to overcome the problem and maintain proper collection of revenue.

At the review meeting, it was revealed that the corporation's collection from March to September last year was Rs 9.96 crore against a target of Rs 60 crore. The housing and urban development department had then asked the corporation to overcome the lacunas.

"We found that the municipal corporation has failed to undertake new assessment and re-assessment of the holdings, which resulted in low collection of tax. Besides, the tax collectors have also failed to meet their holding tax collection target from the defaulters," said an official of the department.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said they were not going to spare the holding tax defaulters this time.

"A good tax collection is important to undertake various development work in the city. The collected amount is spent for the benefit of the people, so everyone should cooperate and pay the tax on time," said Jena.