Indian Express 10.12.2010
Staff crunch hits BMC, property tax assessment to be delayed
Stuti Shukla Tags : Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, capital value based property tax assessment system Posted: Fri Dec 10 2010, 02:44 hrs
Mumbai: Staff shortage and protest by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) employees are set to delay the implementation of capital value-based property tax assessment system. The civic body has only 300 personnel across 24 wards to measure nearly 1 lakh properties for calculation of property tax on the basis of capital value. To add to BMC’s worries, the 300 employees have protested against the increased workload on them to meet the deadline for assessment of properties. The BMC was supposed to acquire Geographic Information System to assess the properties but the project was scrapped and the work has to be done manually now.If property tax bills are to be dispatched in March next year, the data on the 1 lakh properties, including 60,000 slum properties, should be in by January next year, assessment and collection department officials said. The state government had orderd civic bodies to switch from rateable value-based property tax system (tax calculated on the basis of the rent-earning capacity of a property) to capital value-based system (tax calculated on the basis of capital value as per the ready reckoner) from April 2010. In the current financial year, the BMC dispatched bills as per the old system as it did not have data for the new system. “It is impossible for 300 ward inspectors to inspect so many properties in 20 days. Each property has 10 units on an average. Security of the ward inspectors while measuring properties in slum areas is another major issue. If such problems continue we will be able to implement the new system only by 2012,” said an official from the assessment and collection department.
On Tuesdy, ward inspectors led by union leaders refused to take up work claiming that they are burdened. Inspectors said additional manpower should be outsourced and assistants should accompany each inspector for security.
To ease pressure on BMC workers, the civic body will concentrate on the 40,000 non-slum properties this year, deputy assessor and collector RB Dalvi said. “Slum properties are less than 500 square feet so their property tax changes won’t affect us much. We will try to complete the measurement of at least 40,000 non-slum properties in the next few days,” said Dalvi.
