Rs. 779 crore collected as property taxfor year ending on March 31.
Over 8.12 lakh honest tax payers. A historic high of Rs.
779 crore was collected from these citizens by GHMC as property tax for
the last financial year ending on March 31.
With the
number of tax assessments of about 13.12 lakh, the municipal
corporation plans to go after the remaining 4.99 lakh non-payers in the
next three months to bring them into the tax net.
“It
is tremendous achievement without increasing the tax by a single rupee
and by concentrating on under-assessed/unassessed properties,” exclaimed
an elated Mayor Mohd. Majid Hussain.
Addressing a
press conference flanked by Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu, Special
Commissioner Navin Mittal, Additional Commissioners – K. Dhananjaya
Reddy (Planning) and K. Ashok Reddy (Finance), he congratulated them and
pointed out that for the second successive year, the revenue and
expenditure had exceeded expectations.
“It’s a
credible achievement considering that there is a 30-40 per cent slippage
on residential assessments. Till June we will be reassessing them
including the non-payers using GIS mapping, photographs and Google maps
so that entire database is available,” said Mr. Krishna Babu.
Arrears list
Top
1,000 arrears list too will be vetted with review petitions filed and a
fresh list will be displayed within three months. Tax payments paid
through cheques have time till April 5 to ensure money goes through or
bounced cheques will entitle criminal cases being filed.
However, both the Mayor and the Commissioner were non-committal about any rationalisation of property tax this year.
While
there is no incentive for circles or colonies where payments were
prompt, high paying commercial properties like hotels will have their
surroundings spruced up as a reward.
The duo were
also happy over the town planning revenue nearly equalling property tax
at Rs. 735 crore including permit fees, BPS and LRS fees. Enforcement
like demolitions of illegal structures, special campaign and threat of
cut of water/power supply has worked, claimed Mr. Krishna Babu.
Increased
revenues will help in spending Rs.100 crore in each zone for improving
their main corridors like drains, roads, street lighting, dividers and
footpaths, he added.
