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.