The Hindu             31.10.2013

AMDA chairperson stresses on improving property tax collection

Unless civic bodies improved their property tax
collection, they will not able to deliver mandated services, Chairperson
of Association of Municipalities and Development Authorities (AMDA) and
Member-Secretary National Capital Region Planning Board Naini
Jayaseelan said.

Inaugurating a two-day national
workshop on “Role of Information Technology (IT) in property tax for
development authorities and municipalities” here on Wednesday, she said
after Octroi, an entry tax levied by local bodies, was abolished
property tax was the major source of revenue for municipalities. Over
the last decade urban population has increased by nine crore. “Though
population has increased property tax has not increased commensurately,”
she observed.

‘Bhuvan’ maps

AMDA
is organising the workshop in collaboration with GVMC and VUDA. Use of
IT would provide some basic solutions, she said. The “Bhuvan” maps of
National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) also can be used as basic model.

For
lack of funds, municipalities were not able to deliver basic services.
This would hit them in two ways- while citizens would find fault with
them, the State Government would also want them to deliver, Ms.
Jayaseelan said.

Return from social investment

She
also underscored the need for the government and urban local bodies
getting commensurate returns from huge social investments made. There
was a huge appreciation of property values along several Delhi metro
corridors and private individuals were deriving benefit from it.
Similarly, along Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) corridors too, ULBs and
government should get back something.

Urban
development authorities on the other hand were flush with cash whereas
the civic bodies that had to provide were lagging behind, she pointed
out.

Later in a brief interaction with media,
Ms.Naini said a study needed to be done on the leakage in property tax.
Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and Ahmedabad were doing well in the use of IT
and others were in the process.

GVMC initiatives

Explaining
the initiatives of GVMC using IT to improve property tax collection,
Municipal Commissioner M. V. Satyanarayana said using a pre-loaded
format on-the-spot verification of under assessed properties was taken
up to prevent leakages. He said from 10,000 properties the property tax
had gone up from Rs.14 crore to Rs.35 crore. Payment of shop rentals
also can be scrutinised.

VUDA Vice-Chairman N.Yuvaraj
said VUDA and GVMC were conducting such a workshop for the first time.
There are properties that are not assessed and under assessed and IT
would provide solutions. In Hyderabad, satellite images were used.
Collection efficiency needs to be improved. General Manager (Finance) of
Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation U. A. Vasantha Rao explained how the
property tax in Bangalore had increased multi-fold after using GIS using
basic models with NRSC and inviting citizens under a self-assessment
programme. Nearly 400 outsourced staff were used and after that camps
were run in wards to help citizens to compare with physical
measurements.

Additional Commissioners M Janaki and B. Nagendra Kumar participated.