Deccan Chronicle 02.01.2014
BBMP can rake in Rs 4,500 cr, if only it tries
Bangalore: The
BBMP maybe on its deathbed financially, but the civic agency has the
potential to earn at least Rs 4,500 crore property tax per annum and get
itself out of the red.
If the property tax is collected properly, the BBMP can tide over its financial crisis in the next three years.
The
estimation was given by Yediyur corporator N.R. Ramesh, who has
conducted an extensive survey on the number and nature of buildings
across the city and the property tax payable by them.
Giving
details at the palike council meeting on Tuesday, he said that the BBMP
has over six lakh commercial buildings and over 16 lakh non-residential
buildings within its limits.
In its eight zones, the BBMP has not
less than 30 buildings which fetch over Rs 5 crore property tax per
annum. About 60 buildings have the potential to bring in Rs 3 crore, 125
buildings Rs 2 crore, nearly 400 buildings with the potential for Rs 1
crore and around 1,300 buildings Rs 50 lakh.
These have been classified as high-value assessment structures.
The
BBMP has, in its limits, 1.1 lakh industrial buildings, 22,000
apartment structures, 8,000 paying guest accommodations, 53 tech parks,
107 commercial malls, 891 marriage halls, 1,200 party halls, 441 star
hotels, 2,450 lodges and 2,446 medical institutions.
Ramesh said
that unfortunately, the BBMP authorities are so inept that only 25 per
cent of the property tax is being collected in the city, while the BBMP
revenue wing is struggling to meet the target of Rs 2,000 crore per
annum.
The officials need not measure the buildings. Instead, they
can take details of the sanctioned building plan from the BBMP official
website and re-validate them to fix the property tax. Even wrong
declarations made in the Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) can be detected
with this method, he suggested.
Earlier, Congress opposition
leader in the council Manjunath Reddy said that despite Comptroller and
Auditor General Report ordering the recovery of Rs 750 crore, the BBMP
has failed miserably to collect it.
