Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu has ordered booking of criminal cases against taxpayers whose cheques had bounced to the extent of Rs.10 crore in all.
At a meeting held with the additional, zonal and deputy commissioners in the head office on Wednesday, he also appealed to the citizens to make use of the voluntary self-assessment of property tax as the last date for availing the scheme had been extended up to August 31. Thus far, the civic body had received a very poor response on the self-assessment front with just 1,084 applications received.
He warned that three years of property tax penalty would be levied against those who were caught being out of the tax ambit. Senior officials were told to concentrate on cases where the tax arrears were pending for more than three years.
The financial advisors of each circle office have been instructed to audit the top 100 cases while the deputy commissioners concerned should collect all details of the properties under scan as the ongoing survey with the help of GIS mapping as well as photographs would only provide plinth areas and heights.
Random inspections
Mr. Krishna Babu said random inspections would be conducted towards the end of the year on the properties being reviewed for tax and if any discrepancies were found action would be initiated against the bill collector concerned. He also wanted better compliance in collecting mobile phone details of the taxpayers as just 1.54 lakh numbers were collected where as the tax assessments were to the tune of 13,22,549 in number.
The GHMC managed to collect Rs. 168.47 crore through property tax till date, which was 25 per cent compared to the previous year. Circles - Rajendranagar (with 59 p.c.), Serilingampally 1 (58 p.c.) and Kukatpally (53 p.c.) stood in top three positions of property tax collections. Following re-assessments done in all 18 circles, about 3,333 cases were reviewed resulting in a decrease of Rs. 10 crore in tax revenue.
