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Telangana Govt unveils plan to make ULBs rich
Taking cue from the success of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in achieving financial self sufficiency through streamlining its main income source-property tax collection, the Telangana government rolled out big plan to make all 67 Urban Local Bodies ( ULBs, also called as municipalities) financially ‘rich’ in the State.
Hyderabad: Taking cue from the success of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in achieving financial self sufficiency through streamlining its main income source-property tax collection, the Telangana government rolled out big plan to make all 67 Urban Local Bodies ( ULBs, also called as municipalities) financially ‘rich’ in the State.
The government already launched its plan in nearly 37 municipalities. Under the plan, all the un-assessed and under assessed properties in every municipality would be brought under property tax net to help every local body not only achieve targets set in tax collections but also increase tax collections to meet the increasing fund requirement for the basic infrastructure development like road network, water supply and other basic amenities.
The Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department had taken up the survey using GPS technology and GIS (Geographical Information System) maps to assess all the properties.
Under the study, each residential and non–residential (commercial) property in the municipality limits would be assessed and the quantum of property tax to be collected from every property afresh would be finalised. The survey would also help to find unauthorised structures mushrooming in the urban bodies. Officials of Revenue department, civil engineers and polytechnic students were also roped in for the giant exercise.
The MAUD officials said that property tax collection was much lower than the targets set every year due to unscientific methods adopted in the previous governments.
A few municipalities only succeeded in achieving more than 60 per cent of the target. The performance of the newly constituted 25 Nagara Panchayats in tax collection was below average (less than 50 per cent). As per the official statistics prepared in 2015, the total number households in Telangana were 12,55,200. The households brought under tax assessment are 10.64 lakh households only.
This year, government wanted to achieve 70 to 80 per cent of the targeted tax collections and by 2018, all the municipalities will achieve 100 per cent.
The new survey would help to include all properties which did not come under tax net. To ensure transparency in tax collections, every tax payer would be allowed to access the status of tax payments and property details on online, the officials said. The tax payers are also permitted to lodge complaints with regard to tax payments and assessments from time to time.
By:Patan Afzal Babu
