The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) is mulling over outsourcing the task of collecting property tax to a private entity and has also floated tenders inviting bids for the same. This was revealed by urban affairs minister Ashok Singhal on Monday. He said about 40% of around 3 lakh households in the city do not pay taxes.
Citing the examples of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar that have roped in private agencies for tax collection in municipal areas, Singhal said, “We have seen that the civic bodies in these states have accomplished the Herculean task of collecting taxes by outsourcing the job. GMC has also floated tenders with an aim to collect taxes, which will enhance the revenue of the corporation.”
A GMC official said the civic body has been incurring heavy losses in revenue earnings owing to the non-payment of property taxes by the city residents, business establishments and other establishments.
It sees poor revenue generation every year as many households do not pay property taxes. The civic body earned Rs 115 crore in revenue in 2021-22 financial year and Rs 109 crore in the 2020-21 fiscal.
The official added, “GMC runs with the revenue it earns. The civic body earns around Rs 10 crore every month, which is far lower than what it should actually make. We need around Rs 10 crore alone to pay the salaries of our employees.”
The civic body has identified more than 2.41 lakh property tax defaulters within its jurisdiction for the year 2021-22. It is also matching its taxpayers’ database with the consumers database of the Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL) to filter out the households that are not paying property taxes. Now, according to rules, electricity consumers must have a GMC property tax holding number.
In 2014, the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) in Jharkhand had hired a private agency – Sparrow Softech — for the purpose of tax collection. The agency had deployed about 130 staff, including field officers and team leaders, for the same.
