The online payment of property tax is yet to take off in Mysore.
The proposal to remit property tax using mobile applications as also through online using credit or debit cards was first mooted in 2010 when the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) began digitising its property database.
MCC commissioner P.G. Ramesh said online payment and mobile payment were bound to materialise in due course though he did not give a timeframe for its implementation.
“Even last month there was a briefing by an authorised private consultant sent by the Municipal Reforms Cell and the MCC staff were apprised about it,” he said. The property database had to be fine-tuned and made web-enabled and the concept was in the preliminary stage, Mr. Ramesh added.
Meanwhile, sources in the MCC said an attempt was made last year to launch a facility for online payment and the MCC had reached an agreement with a few private banks to start the operations. But the MRC did not authorise the use of software due to technical reasons and the issue was yet to be resolved.
Earlier surveys had indicated that Mysore had more than 1.7 lakh registered properties within the MCC limits. But consequent to the launch of Geographical Information System (GIS)-based survey conducted under the Urban Property Ownership Records (UPOR), the numbers have shot up and there are 2.98 lakh properties.
But this includes properties in the 41 villages coming under the Mysore urban agglomerate though not all of them come under the MCC limits. The GIS survey indicates that the total number of registered properties within the MCC limits was bound to go up. The property tax calculation is now reckoned to be irrational as the amount is based on the declaration made by owners on the built area. There are innumerable cases of owners underquoting the built area to reduce the property tax. However, the GIS survey for UPOR project will not only give the dimension of the plot but also the built area and this can be accessed with a click of the button.
Prasad Kulkarni, director, UPOR, Mysore, said the database generated under the pilot project could be shared with the MCC for property tax collection. “Once the UPOR project achieves at least 50 per cent to 60 per cent progress, this data can be shared with the MCC for property evaluation purpose and will come in handy even for online payment of tax.
Deliberate under quoting of the built area to lessen the tax burden will become a thing of the past once the database is finalised and shared for property tax evaluation,” Mr. Kulkarni said.
If the online payment is introduced it will obviate the need for the people to stand in queues at the corporation’s zonal offices or the need to depend on touts and MCC staff to do the computation of tax for a price.
Linking the digitized property data for computation of tax will eliminate scope for undervaluing the property for taxation purpose and this will ensure greater revenue mobilisation for the cash-strapped corporation.
