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Buildings to be checked for tax violation

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The Hindu        08.06.2017   

Buildings to be checked for tax violation

Chennai Corporation’s new initiative

Residents and traders who have constructed unauthorised buildings are under the scanner, as the Chennai Corporation has taken yet another initiative to trace property tax revenue loss.

Three areas

Starting Wednesday, the Corporation will send teams to inspect a total of 8,747 buildings in ward 57 in George Town, 10,414 buildings in ward 136 in T.Nagar and 6,076 buildings in ward 173 in Mylapore, measuring the structures, compiling data on total built up area and other town planning parameters.

The data will be compared with the database of the Chennai Corporation Revenue Department that collects property tax, trace licence and company tax. “The data on additional floors or unauthorised construction will be used to estimate the actual revenue loss of property tax. Under-assessment of property tax remains a challenge. Many homes and commercial buildings are paying less tax, causing huge loss of revenue,” said an official.


GIS mapping

As part of the initiative, the Chennai Corporation will also use GIS mapping of the private buildings on Wednesday, in addition to survey by the teams.

The GIS mapping will also cover all the private property and civic utilities. Even as the drive is done for increasing tax revenue, this initiative is expected to generate huge data sufficient to expose the exact number of unauthorised buildings in the city after the completion of the project,” said an official.