HYDERABAD: Despite a windfall in property tax collections in the 2016-17 financial year, over two lakh tax payers have not paid property tax to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in the year in question.

According to official figures, piled up property tax arrears at the
GHMC amount to Rs 1,228 crore including interest on tax arrears. Of this
amount, the highest arrears of over Rs150 crore has to come from
Khairtabad circle (10B) that covers upmarket areas such as Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills. The other areas from where arrears are due include Secunderabad, Abids and Old City (Charminar) areas.

The GHMC tax wing that gives red notices to the general public and
warns people of seizing movable and auctioning immovable properties
under the Revenue Recovery Act has not been able to collect tax arrears
from about 10,000 top defaulters.

While admitting to the huge arrears, GHMC chief valuation officer
Geetha Radhika said the actual arrears could be lesser as properties
lying vacant and properties razed during road widening need to be
removed from the list of defaulters.”Public sector undertakings such as
HAL have not been paying the amount due to financial problems,” the
chief valuation officer said.

During the 2016-17 financial year that ended on March 31, the
municipal corporation had collected about Rs1,250 crore from about 12.85
lakh owners (assessments) against total assessments of 14.80 lakh in
Greater Hyderabad. Nearly 20,000 tax payers who paid their taxes last
year skipped this year due to various reasons such as no waiver of
interest on the tax amount.

For instance, in Qutubullapur
circle, while about 64,136 people had remitted their property tax
during last year 2015-16, this has come down with 60, 159 properties
making their payments.Similarly , in Kapra circle, in 2015 56, 786 paid
their tax amount and it has come down to 51, 859 in the recently
concluded fiscal. In one of the biggest circles, Secunderabad, against
1.10 tax payers in 2015-16, 1.07 lakh paid their taxes this year.