Mangalore City Corporation Commissioner Harish Kumar said here on Wednesday that the corporation has planned to conduct a comprehensive ward-wise survey for property tax.
To a question raised by the former Mayor Shankar Bhat (BJP) on the issue of poor tax collection during the council meeting here, he said the survey would find the tax liability of each building. The ward-wise estimate of the tax would help in prioritising allocation of funds for each ward in the forthcoming budget. To start with, the survey would be done in two wards. A private firm would do the survey, he said.
Councillor Deepak Poojary (Congress) wanted to know the tax collected since 2008 when the Self-Assessment Scheme was launched. An MCC official told the council that Rs. 22 crore of the estimated Rs. 44 crore had been collected as tax for 2012-13. Mr. Bhat sought to know the reason why the officials had not been able to collect 70 per cent of the tax to be collected. Mr. Kumar clarified that Rs. 44 crore included the amount of tax not collected in the earlier year.
The meeting started with Mariyamma Thomas (Independent) raising the issue of the corporation’s failure to clear encroachments on government land in Shaktinagar. To this, Mr. Kumar said all encroachments would be cleared if councillors passed a resolution on the issue. Ashok Kumar (Congress) expressed the need to make solid waste treatment facility compulsory in all multi-storeyed residential complexes that were coming up in the city.
Garbage helpline
The Commissioner reiterated that the corporation would start a helpline for the people to lodge complaints about non-collection of garbage from their locality. This helpline would be extended to handle complaints related to water supply, underground drainage system, and streetlights.
Mr. Harish Kumar said the corporation had ssued work orders for the Mumbai-based Antony Waste Handling Pvt. Ltd. for door-to-door collection of waste in 60 wards of the city.
While the work was scheduled to commence from January 1, the firm has started the work in a few wards.
Representatives of the firm will be visiting areas on a specified date and time for collection of kitchen and dry waste.
Mr. Kumar said people could call the toll-free number and inform about failure of the company representatives in collecting the waste on the scheduled date. As per the agreement between the corporation and the Mumbai-based company, the Corporation was authorised to take action against the company for the failure in collecting the waste.
Mayor Gulzar Banu presided over the meeting.
