BMC to blacklist 15 private advertisers for not paying licence fee

Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to blacklist 15 private advertisers, who are habitual defaulters, for failing to pay the advertisement licence fee, causing the civic body a loss of Rs 7 crore in FY 2025-26, which ended on Tuesday.

In FY 2025-26, BMC earned Rs 21 crore in advertisement licence, Rs 9 crore in trade licence and Rs 2 crore in parking fee. Its holding tax collection crossed Rs 100 crore (Rs 115 crore) despite many big defaulters failing to comply, BMC officials said.

“We could have got around Rs 28 crore from advertisement licence but there are some advertisers who have been evading ‘licence fee’ every year, leading to a total pendency of Rs 7 crore against them. We will not give any more chance to them and will blacklist them,” BMC deputy commissioner (revenue) Ajay Mohanty said, adding that cases under Odisha Public Demand Recovery (OPDR) Act, 1962, will be instituted against the blacklisted advertisers.

If OPDR Act is invoked, then BMC would have the power to confiscate the property (in proportion to the amount due to them) of the organisation to recover the amount. “Under OPDR Act, a BMC officer is designated as ‘certificate officer’, who is empowered to institute certificate cases,” Mohanty added.

For advertisements, BMC has different slabs for different sizes and varieties of ads. It auctions govt lands for ad agencies and collects revenue from that. In FY 2023-24, it collected Rs 7 crore from ad revenue and in FY 2024-25, it earned Rs 17 crore.

In the holding tax component, establishments built on Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) land mostly failed to pay the tax despite repeated reminders.

The govt allowed BMC to collect holding tax last year from Idco lands from FY 2025-26. Of the total dues, educational institutions alone account for around Rs 32 crore, making them the biggest contributors to the unpaid amount. The remaining dues are linked to other establishments, including commercial and institutional units functioning on Idco land.