For Tax, Civic Body to Come to your House

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has decided to go door to door to calculate property tax and serve bills to property owners living in areas under its jurisdiction. Under the plan, an agency will be hired by the municipal body that will carry out a survey of the properties. This agency will map the buildings and on the basis of its size and other factors, print out a bill on the spot.

At present, property owners do the assessment of their properties on their own and deposit the tax, as they deemed fit, at the corporation office. The north corporation took the decision to augment its income through property tax, one of its main sources of income.

According to an estimate, there are 40 lakh properties in the city but only 10 lakh properties have been assessed for property tax in the absence of proper data with the three agencies.

“The corporation is spending R10 crore on surveying the properties under its jurisdiction. This way, we will be able to issue a unique property identification code (UPIC) to each property in our area. This code will help in keeping a record of the property tax payments,” said a senior official of the agency.

He also said that these days, there are technologies available that are capable of measuring the property and updating the records on a real-time basis. “There modern devices can be used to accurately map the buildings and calculate how much tax should be charged,” he added.

The corporation has also resolved that it will be mandatory for every property owner to obtain the UPIC number since paying wrongful property tax is an offence. Once UPIC is issued for a property, the owner will be given a passbook that will have details of all his/her transaction. At present, the corporation does not keep a record of most of the properties’ previous payments.

“Through the passbook, the owners as well as the corporation will be able to keep a record of property tax transactions so that the owners are not prosecuted,” said leader of the House Mahender Nagpal.

Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 31-01-2013