GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar has directed the Zonal Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners to take the date of issue of Occupancy Certificate as the date to begin the assess property tax of the concerned building.
The Commissioner along with P. Venkatarami Reddy, IAS, Additional Commissioner (Planning), S. Hari Krishna, Additional Commissioner (Revenue), N. Ravi Kiran, Additional Commissioner (Health & Sanitation), D. Jayaraj Kennedy, Additional Commissioner (IT& Finance) and Sri M. Bhaskara Reddy, Additional SP (Vigilance) has conducted a teleconference on Wednesday from his chambers with all the Zonal Commissioners and Dy. Commissioners to review the progress of property tax collection. The Commissioner has informed that GHMC has issued 2,087 occupancy certificates to the buildings in last three financial years covering a total net area of 4028412 square feet, directed them to complete the verification and assessment of the buildings by 20th March and further cautioned them that there will be a cross checking of the buildings by the Head office teams.
Somesh Kumar has informed that GHMC has issued 542 Fire No Objection Certificates and property should be assessed from 2 and half years.
The Commissioner has informed that there are 760 court cases are pending involving Rs. 9730.90 lakhs and congratulated Zonal Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners for settling several court cases pertaining to property tax, opined that officers bestowed their personal attention towards those cases and suggested that if planned strategically all other cases would also be settled soon. The Commissioner further directed to send list of difficult court cases to the Additional Commissioner, Revenue, where an intervention of Head office is required and suggested that departments like town planning, fire, Vigilance and Enforcement can help to clear the cases.
Somesh Kumar expressed his anguish over non-utilization hand held machines by some bill collectors for days together in this hectic hour and directed the officials to offer them with all possible help such providing assisting teams and to take stern action against them with written instructions, if they are not at all willing to work.
The Commissioner instructed to utilize the services of ‘BC Outreach Staff’ and further informed that there are 2.02 lakh PTINs, who can be considered as ‘most likely to pay cases’, who have paid part amount this year and full amount last year and who have a current and arrears demand minus interest of Rs. 347 crores. The average number payers per bill collector is 600+ and amount per BC is Rs. 1 crore, he said. Outreach staff can be appointed at 5 per BC from sanitation, entomology, sports and town planning departments and they should work in close coordinating with Bill Collector and will visit 30PTIN every day, he added.
Somesh Kumar further directed to collect the telephone numbers of all property tax payers which will be readily available with the Bill Collectors concerned. He further said that GHMC database has only 32% of phone numbers of property tax payers which is very low and GHMC loses an opportunity to communicate with them. He further directed the Zonal Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners to ensure that 100% telephone numbers is collected within a week’s time through various channels such as getting numbers from Deputy Commissioners collecting whenever the payment is made and to make it a mandatory for outreach team to collect phone numbers in every visit. (INN)