GHMC incurring 100 cr revenue loss annually

Hyderabad: The ground level staff who are hand in glove with property owners have been causing a loss of about Rs 100 crore to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation revenue annually. The civic body which had recently integrated its property tax data found out that only 57 per cent of it has been recorded in the newly registered properties under property tax net. The GHMC has recently instructed ground level staff to set monthly targets in order to bring all un-assessed properties into the property tax net.

According highly placed sources in the civic body, the higher authorities during last month have instructed ground level staff to bring about 6,000 properties under property tax net from August 1 to August 31. With only two days left to the reach the target, most the ground level staff are yet to cover at least 10 per cent of the target sets.

When queried about the same subject, a senior GHMC official told The Hans India here on Tuesday that the Registration Department registered as many as 343 lakh properties since 2015. He said that out of the total properties registered, only 57 per cent has been matching with the GHMC's property tax data base.

He said in order to bring all un-assessed properties under the property tax net, the civic body has setup a target of bringing 6,000 un-assessed properties into property tax net. He said even though GHMC has passed clear instructions the ground level staff citing various reasons are yet to complete 10 per cent of their target.

Furthermore, the GHMC official said that the ground level staff were even attacking the higher authorities for non-collection of taxes and finding fault with them. He said that 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. The GHMC official also made it clear that the Corporation would initiate stringent action against the guilty ground level staff for leaking civic body’s revenue.