GHMC ground level staff dents property tax revenue

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has been losing out on Rs 200 crore annually through property tax collections. The ground level staff hand in glove with the property owners has leaking the civic body's revenue. This came to light when the GHMC recently integrated its data with the Registration Department.

According to GHMC official, the civic body has recently integrated the data of properties with the Registration Department. The Registration Department registered as many as 343 lakh properties since 2015.

Out of which 72 lakhs are vacant lands and remaining are physical structures. When integrated the data with the civic body only 57 per cent of them have been matched and remaining are not under property tax net.

A senior GHMC official told The Hans India that the civic body would once again cross verify the data with ground level staff whether unmatched properties were under property tax or not and if the property owners did not possess the property tax identification number (PTIN), the corporation would levy 100 per cent fine based on the registration date.

The GHMC official also said that there were about 50,000 properties which were registered in past six years under assessed.
The official after completion of ground level verification the GHMC will bring more than 1 lakh properties in the city limits in to property tax net.

Besides this, he said, based on the land use, the civic body would also levy vacant land tax on about 60,000 lands in GHMC limits. The GHMC was likely to improve its revenue by Rs 200 crore making annual property tax demand for Rs 1,400 crore for the current financial year, he added. The GHMC official also made clear that the corporation would initiate stringent action against the guilty ground level staff for leaking civic body’s revenue.