Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) managed to earn only around Rs 9,200 crore in overall revenue during the financial year 2025-26 ending on March 31, missing its Rs 12,600-crore revenue target by nearly Rs 3,400 crore. The major shortfall came from the building permissions department, income of which shrank to Rs 2,341 crore against a projected target of Rs 2,853.Civic officials attributed the deficit primarily to difficulties in property tax recovery in newly merged areas and ongoing legal complications related to land measurement while granting building permissions. Activists, however, alleged that instead of initiating strict action against long-term tax defaulters, the administration was increasingly dependent on amnesty schemes to shore up revenue.The shortfall was quite baffling, an official said, highlighting the rise in the number of registered taxpayers within the civic limits. The official partly blamed the deficit to the drop in income from the building permissions department in 2025-26, which consistently exceeded targets over the past three financial years. “The department had earned Rs 1,635 crore against a target of Rs 1,400 crore in 2022-23, and Rs 2,407 crore against a target of Rs 1,604 crore in 2023-24. Its collections touched Rs 2,601 crore against a target of Rs 2,493 crore in 2024-25,” the official said, citing PMC data.For 2025-26, PMC had set a building permissions revenue target of Rs 2,853 crore but managed to collect only Rs 2,341 crore, a shortfall of around Rs 500 crore. The PMC data showed that 3,984 building proposals were cleared during the financial year. “The legal hurdles related to land measurement have adversely impacted the building permission process. Since these issues surfaced around eight months back, PMC has found it difficult to clear proposals, leading to a decline in revenue,” Anirudha Pawaskar, city engineer of PMC, said.The property tax department also reported weaker performance compared to the previous financial year. While Rs 2,346 crore was collected from 10.95 lakh properties in 2024-25, collections fell to Rs 2,030 crore in 2025-26, despite the number of properties increasing to 11.33 lakh.The overall property tax revenue, however, reached Rs 2,985 crore after the PMC introduced an amnesty scheme for defaulters, which alone contributed Rs 955 crore. “The frequent introduction of amnesty schemes sends a wrong message to taxpayers and discourages timely payments. The administration must focus on improving regular tax recovery instead of relying on such measures,” Vivek Velankar of citizens’ group Sajag Nagrik Manch, said.
