Chennai Corporation’s property tax collection up after 4 years

Chennai

The Chennai Corporation’s property tax collection for the half year ending September 30 has crossed 210 crore — the highest for the first half-year period in more than four years.

The civic body has regularly fallen short of the property tax collection target. The tax collection from April 1 to September 30 this year at 167.67 crore from the zones which made up the city corporation before expansion is 18% more than 149.27 crore collected in the same period in 2011. For the same period in 2010, 146.45 crore was collected.

Also, the tax collected in the first half-year period is more than 40% of the target the corporation had set for the full year — 477 crore. “We finally have hoped we will be come close to meeting the target,” said a senior corporation official.

Corporation commissioner D Karthikeyan said the figures were encouraging given the fact that property tax collection is intense only in February and March. “Routine collections happen, but we intensify the drive with advertisements in the media and more reminders in those months,” he said. Property tax is levied twice a year, but residents usually pay the full amount in March. So, tax collections have always remained low till February in the last few years.

TOI had reported that the corporation managed just 227 crore from April 2011 till February 2012. “Our target for the expanded city, including arrears, is expected to be around 558 crore. We will intensify efforts in the coming half year to reach the target,” said a senior official.

Apart from the fact that the civic body’s perimeter increased from 174 sq km to 476 sq km, increasing avenues for property tax payments and awareness have contributed to the rise in collections, officials said. Early this year, the corporation began reviving property tax payments through mobile phones and introduced payments at separate counters in 226 bank branches across the city.

“We got 54.4 lakh just from walk-in payments. About 2,336 people used this facility. People who could access the internet paid online, and it reduced queues at zonal offices,” said a senior official. They also put a lot of pressure on the 10.71 lakh assesses giving them new targets and questioning shortfalls in their wards and areas. With property tax being the civic body’s main source of revenue, the increased tax collection is likely to give infrastructure projects a shot in the arm.

Source: The Times of India, Chennai