The civic body has not managed to achieve its target in 35 days Election makes dent in GHMC coffers

The election exercise carried out by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has affected the collection of property tax.

The civic body set a target of `426.92 crore property tax collection for the two months of August and September.

But it has not even managed to achieve 15 per cent of its target in 35 days. It has just managed to collect `56 crore.

Officials claimed that the ground level staff working in the revenue wing were deputed to election duty and were busy preparing draft electoral rolls. Now that the process is completed, officials claim they will focus on achieving their target and collect `370.92 crore in 20 days.

GHMC sources say that after the electoral rolls exercise, the circle and zone re-organisation is the new challenge for the revenue wing as the corporation is midway to fixing the boundaries.

Until that process is completed, the corporation cannot fix responsibility of tax collection for a particular area or circle since this could give an opportunity to indulge in irregularities.

In order to enhance the property tax during the current financial year the corporation had set a target of `426.92 crore for two months. The civic body told the revenue wing to collect `213.46 crore per month on priority in order to not only meet the expenses of regular operations and maintenance work but also major projects including SRDP, 2 BHK housing project and others.

However, due to the election work only `56 crore was collected from August 1. The corporation has the herculean task of collecting `370.92 crore in about 20 working days.

Besides this, since the expenditure is less than the monthly income, the corporation is not in a position to pay salaries to its employees.

A senior GHMC official who does not want to be named said the corporation has collected `617.63 crore till July this year.

He said that the revenue generated was used for road repairs, salaries, sanitation and major projects. He said that in order meet future expenses the corporation decided to collect `53.36 on a weekly basis. However, the corporation has managed to collect only `56 crore in 35 days He said that for regular operations and maintenance work and to pay salaries to employees the corporation has to meet the set target, since `110 crore will be paid towards salaries, and `200 crore for maintaining sanitation and roads.

“If the revenue wing fails to achieve the target, the corporation will be bankrupted,” the official added.