The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has increased its property tax revenues from Rs.376.40 crore to Rs.1,115 crore in the last five years, GHMC Commissioner and Special Officer Somesh Kumar said in New Delhi on Thursday.
In a presentation at the launch of the Smart Cities Mission, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Housing for All Mission in New Delhi, Mr. Somesh Kumar said the increase in tax collection had been achieved without a hike in taxes for residential properties since 2002 and non-residential properties since 2007. The tax collection drive involves various strategies, including incentives for best performers, constant persuasion of tax payers through SMS and focusing on top defaulters, he said. To realise maximum tax collection, the GHMC introduced discount of 5 per cent and collections in the month of April have gone up from Rs.30 crore in 2012-13 to Rs.174 crore in 2014-15. Grievance redressal mechanism in the form of a 24x7 call centre and resolving genuine grievances through out of court settlements and concepts such as ‘property tax parishkaram’ were also mentioned.
