GUJRANWALA, Sept 18: The excise and taxation (E&T) department here has failed to recover annual licence fee from around 3,500 property dealers due to non-completion of registration process but has declared them defaulters and issued them recovery notices on Tuesday.

The E&T department had imposed Rs10,000 annual fee on property dealers working in city precincts while Rs5,000 on those who are working outside the municipal limits. The property dealers did not pay annual license fee owing to procedural difficulties but the E&T department declared them defaulter and issued them recovery notices on Tuesday.

Talking to Dawn, property dealers claimed that the department could not start recoveries until the registration process was completed.

When contacted, an E&T official said the registration of around 150 property dealers had been completed while of the remaining ones would be completed in next couple of days.