The Hindu        06.03.2017 

Urban local bodies get demonetisation boost

Spurt in property tax collection during demonetisation window

Demonetisation has worked magic for the urban local bodies (ULBs)
across the Telangana State with the property tax collection swelling
like never before.

By allowing citizens to pay through old
demonetised currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000, the collection from
71 municipal bodies, excluding Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation
(GHMC), was Rs. 214.59 crore in November last year!

It is a good
Rs. 181 crore more when compared to the tax collection the previous year
in the same month. The December 2016 property tax collection too was
not that bad with Rs. 27.03 crore, though it was less than the amount
collected during the same month in the previous year.

The
‘demonetisation’ month or period of November 11 to 24 when the
Government permitted limited transactions through old notes, including
payment of taxes and official dues, has helped the local bodies to mop
up more than Rs. 250 crore by December-end when the total demand is
about Rs. 346.5 crore, including arrears, and current assessment of Rs.
266.5 crore and arrears of Rs. 79 crore.

“We have had good
collection despite constraints of staff crunch with 13 ULBs having
mopped up 82 % like Medipally and Boduppal. Property tax collection of
another 24 local bodies is between 40 % to 60 % but we also have places
like Zaheerabad and Wanaparthy which have had zero collection in last
few days,” Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration (CDMA)
T.K. Sridevi said.

Mopping up

Holding regular
interactions and video-conferencing is going on between her and the
municipal commissioners or officers in-charge in the last few months to
keep a tab on the tax collection considering the deadline of March 31 is
fast approaching.

“We
expect the collection to pick up as most citizens pay in March and also
because the Government is disinclined to give any interest waiver this
year,” she says.

There are more than 16 lakh property assessments
in the municipal bodies across the state and following GIS surveys
completed in 33 ULBs, 20,000 new properties were unearthed and Rs. 34
crore realised in 32 of them.

Govt. properties

However,
the tax collection for the Government properties has been very poor.
For the 35,543 properties across the urban local bodies, tax collection
so far has been just Rs. 9.75 crore when a whopping Rs. 81.5 crore has
to be collected including arrears.

All the district collectors, in
a written communication, have been urged to take up on priority the
collection of property tax from Central and State government properties
as it has direct bearing on the financial position of ULBs.

“All these will be factored when the credit rating agencies assess the municipality concerned,” points out Dr. Sridevi.