The Hindu               13.06.2013

BBMP to develop software to check revenue leakage

One of the last few important decisions that the previous Commissioner Siddaiah took towards improving resource mobilisation of the financially ailing Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is to integrate the database of trade licences, properties and advertisements, specifically shop advertisements.

According to sources within the BBMP, Mr. Siddaiah, when in office, directed the civic authority’s IT department to develop a software that integrates the database. The Chief Health Officer, whose office issues trade licences, and the Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) have been instructed to work with the IT department.

Ad taxes

The software will be dependent on the GIS (geographical information system) data. With GIS, the BBMP officials will be able to ascertain if any name board that is displayed outside shops is bigger than the specified size (6 ft x 4 ft). “If it is bigger, the BBMP will issue demand notices and collect advertisement tax from these commercial establishments,” an official said.

BBMP has captured all properties in the city through GIS and even issued the property identity (PID) number. By linking trade licence with the PID, the BBMP hopes to detect the property owners who have made false declarations under Self-Assessment Scheme and underreported their tax.

“Some owners would have declared their properties are being used for residential purposes, even though they may be used for commercial purposes. Through GIS and physical verification, we can detect such cases, collect the dues to BBMP from them by issuing demand notices and updating the database,” the source said.

Just a fourth

The BBMP has data from Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) about the number of commercial establishments.

The civic authority, which has been taking up drives to increase the number of trade licences, has issued 50,000 licences. “The BBMP’s target is to collect Rs. 200 crore by issuing two lakh trade licences. We are getting only Rs. 50 crore from trade licences,” a revenue official told The Hindu on condition of anonymity.

With revenue mobilisation being crucial to the BBMP, it is now up to the new Commissioner to take this forward and check revenue leakage.

The Hindu        10.06.2013

Smart phones for sanitary supervisors

 Karthik Madhavan

On the heels of putting in place a mechanism to improve hygiene in public toilets, the Coimbatore Corporation is planning to arm sanitary supervisors with smart phones to ensure that the toilets are clean and user-friendly.

According to sources in the civic body, officials are planning to distribute smart phones with apps that will help the supervisors check if the toilets are user friendly.

The app, when launched, will ask the supervisors for answers in ‘yes’ or ‘no’ format to a set of questions.

The questions will relate to water supply, cleanliness, power supply, etc. to which they will have to reply once or twice every day after inspecting the toilets of which they have been put in charge. The application will send the details to a server at the Corporation.

The server will read all the ‘no’ answers and generate a report for officials to set things right.

The sources say that in all probability the Corporation may go in for smart phones with android. It has given the broad contours of its requirements to an agency to come out with a solution. The Corporation manages 285 free toilets across the city.

Prior to answering the questions, the supervisors should have visited the toilets. To ensure that they do so and not send answers to the questions without visiting the toilets, the app will have hidden features.

At present, the Corporation has assigned each sanitary supervisor one or two toilets for inspection once or twice a day. In April this year, Corporation Commissioner G. Latha tasked all sanitary supervisors with ensuring that the toilets are clean.

The sanitary supervisors were asked to report the condition of toilets on a daily basis to zonal sanitary officers, who, in turn, should report to the city health officer.

Smart phones will have apps to help supervisors check if toilets are clean and user-friendly