As more people felt increasingly impatient waiting in serpentine queues for hours together in banks to swap demonetised high value currency notes, the civic body here wooed the citizens to clear their tax arrears and pay their taxes in advance with scrapped notes.
Overseeing the collection of property and other taxes, Ongole Muncipal Corporation Commissioner S. Venkatakrishna told The Hindu on Saturday that ''there has been a very good response to the special offer from the public who are saddled with the scrapped notes''.
''Hitherto, people used to wait till March-end to pay property tax. But they cleared property tax for Rs. 1 crore till this afternoon,” he said, adding that the offer would be valid only for the next two days.
Public could use the opportunity not only to clear the tax arrears but also make payment of property tax for the next three years well in advance, he explained. Special counters were set up for the benefit of public who could also make payments in the Mee Seva Centres.
He said, ''Those who pay their property tax for 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 will get an additional five per cent discount.'' People could also pay, among other taxes, water tax, dangerous & trade licence, vacant land tax and town planning fee with demonetised high denomination notes. The civic body engaged auto-rickshaws fitted with public address system to create awareness on the people-friendly initiative. The OMC also advertised in the local media inviting the citizens to make use of the special offer, he added.