The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is once
again considering bringing paying guest accommodations and service
apartments under the commercial tax bracket.

During
the BBMP council meeting here on Tuesday, Yediyur councillor N.R. Ramesh
pointed out that there were more than 8,000 PG hostels in the city. If
all the PG accommodations are brought under the commercial tax net, BBMP
can raise revenue up to Rs. 60 crore every year, he said, adding that
action should be taken against officials who do not update tax-related
records and fail to collect taxes on time.

However,
the BBMP’s Revenue Department claimed that there were only 272 PG
hostels in the city, and that property tax totalling from which Rs.
31.17 lakh was being collected from their owners every year.

The
other councillors, including Opposition Leader B.N. Manjunath Reddy and
the former Mayor S.K. Nataraj agreed with Mr. Ramesh, and said,
“Several times in the past also Mr. Ramesh had suggested ways to
increase tax revenue, but officials have not acted on it.”

Mayor
B.S. Sathyanarayana said revenue and tax inspectors had been asked to
visit at least 25 properties each day to check whether tax has been
paid. “But nothing much has been done in this regard,” he lamented.

BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayan said under the Self Assessment Scheme, PG hostels are classified as tenanted accommodations.

He
added that he would direct the assistant revenue officers to look into
the list of properties provided by Mr. Ramesh and submit a report in a
months’ time.

Tenders

Nagapura
councillor S. Harish, who brought to light several instances where
officials allegedly wasted tax payers’ money by issuing tender
notifications in newspapers. He said many tender notifications had been
published as classified advertisements in newspapers without the
officials bringing it to the notice of the Commissioner.

According
to the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement Act, there is no
need to float tenders and publish notifications for works worth up to
Rs. 2 lakh.

However, there were instances where officials floated tenders for works costing up to Rs. 1 lakh.

“In
many instances, the cost of the tender notification is more than the
actual work itself. In many instances, soon after the notification is
published, a corrigendum is also released,” he said.

Mr.
Harish claimed that last year, the BBMP spent Rs. 5.29 crore on
notifications and an additional Rs. 52 lakh on getting corrigenda
printed. “What is the reason behind the officials placing so many tender
notifications? Is there any ulterior motive?” he asked.

He
added that while a tender notification can be published only thrice,
there were instances when BBMP officials had got it published nine times
as they had not got any response.