Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad has recommended adopting certain provisions of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, under the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, to collect pending property tax from defaulters.
Under the KMC Act, the civic body may only seize movable properties of tax defaulters, that too after issuing three notices. With pending tax running into several lakhs, auctioning of movable assets seized does not cover the entire amount, he said.
He has now proposed to adopt certain provisions of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, that allow seizing of immovable properties of tax defaulters. The proposal has been placed before BBMP Administrator Gaurav Gupta in the absence of an elected council. The administrator is expected to write to the Department of Urban Development in this regard.
Property tax is one of the major revenue sources for the BBMP. Though the civic body sets a target of collecting ₹3,500 crore from the 19 lakh-odd properties under the tax net, it falls short each year.
