BBMP registered a 50% increase in property tax collection this fiscal as against the previous financial year, and that too much before completion of the deadline to avail 5% rebate. After June 1, interest rate will be added during payment.
While tax collection has been seeing a steady rise year on year, over the past three fiscals, the count has gone up substantially.
According to data shared by the urban local body, the Palike collected Rs 1,786.2 crore till May 26, an increase of 84.2% as against 2020-2021 (May 26). This is a positive sign for the civic body, which is planning to spend an additional outlay of 377.5 crore in the 2022-23 fiscal.
On May 8, the urban development department (UDD) approved the budget, adding an additional outlay of over 300 crore with the rider that it could be utilised only if the Palike generates additional revenue. Initially, the size of the budget was Rs 10,484 crore.
Tax collection in 2020 was Rs 970 crore and it jumped to Rs 1,193 crore in 2021. The data also showed the civic body collected more tax online. For this year, Rs 922.8 crore was collected online, and Rs 863.3 crore through challans. However, while in 2020, online collection was high, in 2021, collection was more through challans.
Deepak RL, special commissioner (revenue), attributed the jump to focused work on collection and streamlining of the online portal.
Earlier, there was a problem with mentioning the zones in the portal, which now has been rectified. For instance, if someone mentions the area of the property, the zone will be automatically frozen, calculating the accurate tax amount. Earlier, there was scope for mentioning the wrong zone, effectively reducing the tax amount.
