Property tax collection in the city has taken a hit owing to the present lockdown, which could land the GHMC in difficult straits in the coming year.
A day before the end of financial year, on Monday, property tax collection stood at mere ₹1,359 crore, which is lower than the collection of previous year at ₹1,401 crore. For the current year, GHMC has set itself a target of ₹1,800 crore.
Usually, the corporation receives a bulk of its collection at the end of the financial year, in last week of March. However, due to lockdown imposed for the last one week, the collections have been very low, officials informed.
“During March, the collections are mere ₹90 crore, as against the ₹270 crore collected during the same month last year. We are in doubt if we will be able to cross even last year’s collection, let alone reach our target for this year,” an officials shared.
Bulk of the current year’s collection was through bill collectors who visited from door to door handing over the demand notices.
A total of ₹729 crore were garnered by the bill collectors, while ₹326 crore was received online.
With COVID-19 scare and lockdown taking its toll, hardly any assessees are visiting the citizen service centres at GHMC offices. E-Seva and Mee Seva centres too are not receiving many footfalls.
“Even if we announce Early Bird offer for concessional payment in April, there might not be any takers considering that the lockdown will stay up to April 15,” the officer said.
On the other hand, the building permission fee, which is the second major source of revenue for GHMC, has just stopped short of the target. Against a target of ₹1000 crore for this year, about ₹960-970 crore has been collected so far. The collection, however, has surpassed the previous year’s collection of about ₹850 crore.
