The Hindu        09.09.2016  

GHMC may get Rs.500 cr. by reassessing properties

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is banking on property tax reassessments for commercial properties, newly constructed buildings and those under the Rs. 1200 payment per annum bracket to increase its property tax collection by Rs. 500 crore for this year.

Last year, it earned Rs. 1050 crore in property tax and it had to give up Rs.88 crore following the Government’s decision to waive tax for properties paying Rs. 1200 per annum and below. With the Government sitting on the proposal to hike the property tax rates which were earlier raised for residential properties in 2002 and commercial in 2007, the municipal corporation has been forced to look within to raise resources.

Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy at a meeting with his senior staff on Thursday wanted them to concentrate on these categories and also trade licence fees to obtain more revenue. He pointed out that by checking the veracity of 60,613 properties paying Rs. 1200 as tax, about 26,219 properties were reassessed and Rs. 14.34 crore was realised.

Therefore, he reasoned, if the Deputy Commissioners and bill collectors diligently scan through the remaining five lakh properties under the same tax band, Rs. 100 crore can be collected even if 50 per cent is verified thoroughly. Similarly, there were 1.40 lakh commercial properties but 40,000 had taken trade licences last year while the figure this year is 35,000. Hence, there should be focus on bringing them into the tax net and also look into the fines being charged for those not taking trade licenses.

TSSCPDCL data

Mr. Reddy advised the officers to make use of the data of the TSSCPDCL and commercial tax departments as well as phone numbers of the tax payers to collect precise information about the properties and also to send tax updates and payment schedules.

Central and State Government properties number about one lakh and up to Rs. 180 crore can be realised from them so also by reviewing the fee from municipal estates and check bounce cases.