GHMC collects `1,057 cr as property tax, misses target

With 10 days remaining for the end of the fiscal, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation collected `1,057 crore as property tax against the target of `1,400 crore. This shortfall was despite the corporation forming special teams, identifying potential defaulters and initiating several activities to raise collection.

Interestingly, sources claimed that to impress their political bosses the corporation had been providing false figures over the last few years.

According to sources, the corporation during 2015-16 said it collected `1,025.45 as property tax when the actual amount was `967.71 crore. The next year the collection was `1,073.15 crore when the figure given out was `1,205 crore. The figures were raised after including amounts mentioned in bounced cheques.

However, during the current fiscal, collection was from 10,61,884 properties as against 14,93, 011 in the city which included residential and non-residential ones. Official sources said though the corporation had the capacity to collect `800 crore from all the defaulters, staff crunch and irregularities in the department would make collection reach a maximum `1,200 crore.

A senior GHMC official responded and said the corporation had increased property tax potential by 20 per cent every financial year. Since the corporation had managed to collect `1,200 crore last year it set the target of `1,400 crore for this fiscal and to meet that, it proposed to collect `13.52 crore per day till the end of this month. However, he refused to comment on the issue of ‘manipulating’ figures.

The GHMC proposed to collect `1,400 crore as property tax, a major revenue source. Among the 30 municipal circles, Serilingampally 1 topped the chart with `115.9 crore, followed by Khairatabad 10B circle `104.68 crore.