Pune Municipal Corporation Falls Short of Revenue Target by ₹3400 Crore in FY26
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) managed to earn only around ₹9,200 crore in overall revenue during the financial year 2025-26, falling short of its ₹12,600 crore revenue target by nearly ₹3,400 crore. The major shortfall came from the building permissions department, where income dropped to ₹2,341 crore against a projected target of ₹2,853 crore.
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 on 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 ₹1,635 crore against a target of ₹1,400 crore in 2022-23, and ₹2,407 crore against a target of ₹1,604 crore in 2023-24. Its collections touched ₹2,601 crore against a target of ₹2,493 crore in 2024-25.
For 2025-26, PMC had set a building permissions revenue target of ₹2,853 crore but managed to collect only ₹2,341 crore, a shortfall of around ₹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 ₹2,346 crore was collected from 10.95 lakh properties in 2024-25, collections fell to ₹2,030 crore in 2025-26, despite the number of properties increasing to 11.33 lakh. The overall property tax revenue, however, reached ₹2,985 crore after the PMC introduced an amnesty scheme for defaulters, which alone contributed ₹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. This approach is crucial for ensuring sustainable revenue generation and reducing the reliance on one-time measures.
