No more serpentine queues; no need to spend a large part of the working day in the city corporation offices. Bangaloreans can now walk into branches of select banks and pay their property tax.
On Monday, Mayor D. Venkatesh Murthy inaugurated the facility at IDBI Bank on Mission Road and Corporation Bank on J.C. Road.
50 bank branches
To begin with, citizens can pay their property tax through 50 bank branches across the city. By October, the facility will be extended to 350 branches.
The BBMP has tied up with 13 banks — IDBI Bank, Corporation Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Canara Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Indian Overseas Bank, HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Yes Bank, Indian Bank and IndusInd Bank.
“The civic body wants to make property tax payment easy. Citizens can now pay taxes online using their debit/ credit cards as well. To pay their taxes, citizens will have to key in their property identity numbers and RR numbers. Once done, the details of their property will be available. The bank will also verify to ensure that the tax has been remitted for the correct property,” he said.
I. Ramakanth, BBMP’s Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), said that of the 16 lakh properties in the city, the BBMP had verified the PID issued to over 13 lakh properties. The validation of the remaining properties would be completed in two months.
The BBMP, through the nationalised and private banks, will also be offering mobile payment facilities. This will be helpful to citizens to pay their property tax. A senior official added that the zonal commissioners will identify huge apartment complexes where the mobile vans can go to collect the taxes.
Mobile vans
“We will go to the citizens even before they come to the BBMP to pay their taxes. To begin with, each zone will have three or four mobile vans where payment can be made,” he added.
Hassle-free payment
IDBI’s head for South India Mythili Balasubramaniam said that if there is demand for the facility, the bank may open a separate counter for hassle-free payment of property tax.
Additional Commissioner (Finance) R. Kiran and Technical Adviser T. Sheshadri were present.
