“The civic body prepares a certificate of tax assessment of each property after the completion certificate is issued by the city engineer’s department. It gives the name of the owner, actual area, date of assessment, name of the assessment officer and address of the property. The tax is charged on basis of assessment,” said PMC tax assessment and collection officer Vilas Kanade.

He said the work of scanning the documents had almost been completed. “They would soon be loaded on the website of the civic body so that they can be accessed by citizens through Internet.” He said the PMC already had an online payment facility for property tax, but making the assessment document available on the Internet would further ease the entire system. The initiative would also help the administration to check old documents that are in bad condition. “We are covering one area after the other and making note of documents missing from the records.”

Civic activist Vivek Velankar said the initiative was a good example of making use of information technology. “The documents being made available on the Internet will help citizens to check the tax charged on the property. Most of the time, it is difficult for the PMC to locate the document demanded by citizens,” he said, adding that it would save a lot of time.

The detailed information about properties would also be helpful to prospective property buyers. Velankar said, “Many would benefit from the PMC initiative and would simultaneously help the administration to maintain records. The PMC should also keep a backup of all the documents on Internet as it might get lost if the system crashes.”