Anomalies put pvt property tax assessor under lens

The much-hyped move by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) to outsource property tax assessment is now under the scanner for rampant anomalies in the data collection mechanism adopted by the private agency.

To enrich its dwindling coffers, the tax department chalked out an elaborate plan to spend a whopping Rs. 27.60 crore on a Geographical Information System (GIS) - a satellite based technology for the mapping and survey of properties in the twin cities. Subsequently, the civic administration had shortlisted a Nagpur agency charging Rs. 545 per property for the work. This was on top of the additional charge of Rs 145 per property towards maintenance, printing and distribution of bills. While the civic administration claims the move was an attempt to identify properties missing from the property tax net and to weed out under-assessments and residential taxation for commercial use, the opposition has termed the outsourcing as a moneyminting exercise drilling holes in civic coffers. Averaging Rs 203 crore as annual revenue, official statistics reveal, there are a total of 3,48,477 lakh assessed properties in the twin cities and the MBMC hopes to achieve the unrealistic goal of netting 50,000 more properties to broaden its tax base. Apart from GIS-mapping, the private surveyors are mandated to sketch diagrams of the properties and determine their carpet and built-up areas using a digital distance meter. However, it has been alleged that this mechanism is being conveniently bypassed.