Owners of houses and shops constructed prior to 2008 will have to pay more property tax in the city.

The Chennai Corporation has revised the library cess from five paise per rupee to 10 paise for property tax assessments.

Owners of buildings constructed after 2008 are already paying 10 paise per rupee.

The library cess collected along with property tax is remitted to the local library authority.

In a report by the Accountant General for the year 2012-2013, it is stated that though the government had enhanced the library cess from five paise to 10 paise for every rupee of tax levied, the Corporation continued to levy library cess only at the rate of five paise per rupee. With the Corporation not revising the property tax since 2008, the library cess was also not increased.

After the Corporation Special Officer passed a resolution on April 26, the Revenue department asked all zones to revise the library cess rate to 10 paise per rupee.

Owners of at least half the buildings in the city are expected to pay a higher tax with effect from 2017-2018, said an official. The city has 11.7 lakh property tax assessees.

The MoUD has sent a communication to the Directorate of Municipal Administration and the Tiruchi Corporation stating that Tiruchi city has been selected in “the winning category.” The exact position of the ranking would be known on Thursday. A four-member team of the Tiruchi Corporation led by its Special Officer-cum-Commissioner N. Ravichandran left for New Delhi on Tuesday to receive the award.

“We do not know the exact position of Tiruchi city in the ranking. But, the MoUD officials have asked us to attend the award ceremony. We are heading for New Delhi. We hope that Tiruchi city will get a respectable position once again,” Mr. Ravichandran told The Hindu on Tuesday. He said out of 2,000 marks set by the Directorate of Swachh Bharat Mission, the Tiruchi Corporation would score good marks on various categories. It had taken strenuous efforts to get maximum marks in all categories, including solid waste management, citizen feedback, night sweeping, on-site composting, biometric attendance, Swachhata APP downloading, practice and responding to the citizens complaints, community toilet, Individual Household Latrine coverage and others.

Mr. Ravichandran said that it might score less marks only in landfill category. The Corporation had narrowed down the gaps in all shortcomings that were identified in the previous years. The city had secured all India second rank in the Swachh Bharat ranking 2014-15. However, it went down by a place in 2015-16. The survey for 2016-17 was completed in January. A team from the Quality Council of India had visited Tiruchi to get a first-hand information on cleanliness of the city.