The Hindu       20.03.2014

Property Tax to be assessed from date of issuance of occupancy certificate

GHMC will assess the property tax of a building from the date of issuance of the occupancy certificate, Commissioner Somesh Kumar on Wednesday told his senior officials including zonal and deputy commissioners.

The municipal corporation had issued 2,087 occupancy certificates to the buildings in the last three financial years, covering a total net area of 40,28,412 sq.ft. and directed officials to complete the verification and assessment of the buildings within the next two days. Further, teams from the head office will do the crosschecking.

GHMC has issued 542 no-objection certificates and hence, property should be assessed from the last two-and-a-half years. There are about 760 pending court cases involving Rs. 9,730.90 lakh and the GHMC wants every case to be handled carefully.

The head office can coordinate with departments like town planning, fire, vigilance & enforcement to clear the cases. Hand held devices too should be put to good use. The extra staff being deployed from other departments to collect tax arrears should be utilised to look into 2.02 lakh property tax payers with current amount and arrears minus interest of up to Rs. 347 crore. Each bill collector has been told to visit 30 tax payers daily and collect their phone numbers.