The Greater Chennai Corporation will take up reassessment of 2.79 lakh properties that have been identified through a drone survey.
A drone survey revealed anomalies in property tax assessment. It showed that several properties were bigger in size than what was shown in the records. Hence the owners of these properties were liable to pay higher property tax.
The Corporation Council on Thursday passed a resolution permitting 30 teams of private agencies to take up measurement of the underassessed buildings in the 15 zones of the city.
According to a drone survey conducted in the city, 3.10 lakh properties had to be reassessed. A total of 30,899 properties have been reassessed by the Corporation. The remaining properties will be reassessed by private agencies in nine months. The teams are expected to complete reassessment of 10,500 properties every month.
The Corporation has 94 tax assessors in the 200 wards of the city. As the number of tax assessors is inadequate, the council approved deployment of 60 members from private agencies for the task. The personnel from the private agencies will be paid ₹750 a day for their work.
The Corporation is reported to be the first local body in the country to complete a drone survey for buildings, including residential properties, commercial properties and government buildings.
The civic body is expected to collect ₹2,200 crore property tax every year from 13 lakh properties. Once the reassessment is completed, this figure is expected to go up.
The World Bank has formulated guidelines for funding infrastructure projects and one of the conditions was increasing the Corporation’s own source of revenue.
