Vijayawada Forms Committee to Recover Over ₹870 Crore in Vacant Land Tax Dues

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Authorities in Vijayawada have set up a Vacant Land Tax Committee (VLTC) with the aim of recovering more than ₹870 crore in unpaid tax from landowners across the city. This move comes in response to the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation’s (VMC) poor tax collection performance during the 2024-25 financial year, where only ₹19 crore was collected against a target of ₹237 crore.

The newly formed committee will include officials from the VMC’s revenue and town planning departments, the district revenue office, and the stamps and registration department. Its primary focus will be identifying and pursuing top defaulters in a structured manner, beginning with divisions that have fewer cases of tax default.

There are around 15,000 vacant land assessments across the 64 divisions of the VMC. These are managed through three revenue circles in the city. The VLTC plans to work closely with village revenue officers, mandal revenue officers, and sub-registrars to gather accurate contact information and trace property owners, many of whom reside outside Vijayawada or even abroad.

The committee has been tasked with improving compliance by sending notices to defaulters after confirming their identities and addresses. Officials believe that one of the major hurdles in tax recovery has been the inability to trace absentee landowners effectively.

With this initiative, the administration hopes to significantly improve revenue collection and strengthen enforcement of property tax obligations in the city.