In a first, coimbatore corporation collected a whopping 50.2 crore in property tax in the first month of the financial year itself, thanks to the 5% incentive announced by the department of municipal administration and water supply.
The incentive was announced for those who pay the first six months instalment before the end of April.
An official with the revenue department credited the incentive programme for the achievement. “It was the first time the incentive was given to corporations other than Chennai corporation, which has been doing it for a long time. This month, the collection is more than double. It is 14% of the total property tax meant to be collected for the entire financial year. 40 crore was collected in just 11 days. The average monthly tax collection will be 20-25 crore,” he said.
The civic body is expecting 363.78 crore from the 5,51,218 residential and commercial establishments in the city this fiscal.
Such a steep increase in property tax collection usually happens only at year-end as residents fear punitive actions, the official said.
Meanwhile, a senior corporation official said the early collection will help to execute projects announced in the budget. “It will also help to clear pending payments for completed projects and some of the ongoing projects. Special tax collection camps on weekends also helped. In just two days, the corporation collected 12.57 crore from such camps. While 8.42 crore was collected on Saturday, 4.15 crore was collected on Sunday.”
Among the five zones, the highest collection was from the central zone, from where 3.87 crore was collected in the weekend. It was followed by the east zone with 3.31 crore, west zone with 1.79 crore, south zone with 1.77 crore and north zone with 1.28 crore.