Residents and traders who have constructed unauthorised buildings are under the scanner, as the Chennai Corporation has taken yet another initiative to trace property tax revenue loss.
Three areas
Starting Wednesday, the Corporation will send teams to inspect a total of 8,747 buildings in ward 57 in George Town, 10,414 buildings in ward 136 in T.Nagar and 6,076 buildings in ward 173 in Mylapore, measuring the structures, compiling data on total built up area and other town planning parameters.
The data will be compared with the database of the Chennai Corporation Revenue Department that collects property tax, trace licence and company tax. “The data on additional floors or unauthorised construction will be used to estimate the actual revenue loss of property tax. Under-assessment of property tax remains a challenge. Many homes and commercial buildings are paying less tax, causing huge loss of revenue,” said an official.
“Later, the data could also be used for estimating the unauthorised constructions. The most important violations relating to floor space index will be identified,” said an official.
As a first step, the civic body will send 15 teams comprising two persons from a private firm to the buildings to take measurements of the premises. The members of the teams will have identity cards of the Chennai Corporation.
GIS mapping
As part of the initiative, the Chennai Corporation will also use GIS mapping of the private buildings on Wednesday, in addition to survey by the teams.
The GIS mapping will also cover all the private property and civic utilities. Even as the drive is done for increasing tax revenue, this initiative is expected to generate huge data sufficient to expose the exact number of unauthorised buildings in the city after the completion of the project,” said an official.
