Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC)’s property tax collection for the month of July and ongoing collection for the month of August have taken a beating owing to the additional responsibilities assigned to the staff of Revenue wing.
For a target of ₹2,000 crore for the financial year 2022-23, the civic body could collect almost ₹1,000 crore so far. However, of the total collection, ₹742 crore was received by April 30, as part of the Early Bird scheme which incentivised payment in the first month of the financial year. This is nearly three quarters of the total collection so far.
For the next three months, the collection has been only a little over ₹250 crore, and much below the target in July, when the bill collectors and tax inspectors have been roped into the job of segregation of applications received for double bedroom housing units across the city.
The weeklong exercise involved division-wise and docket-wise segregation of more than seven lakh applications.
For a target collection of ₹154 crore fixed for the month, the actual collection has not crossed $50 crore, which is not even a third of the target.
Collection had been especially low in Khairatabad Zone, at less than ₹15 crore for a target of $60 crore.
The trend continues in August, for which the target has been fixed at $200 crore. At the end of the first week, the collection remains at about ₹30 crore, before the Revenue staff got busy in verification of the beneficiaries, and collection of additional information such as reservation category, assembly constituency, and electoral photo identity card.
With several infrastructural projects incomplete at various locations in the city, GHMC counts heavily on tax collections to see them through. Property tax and building permission fee are the major components of the civic body’s revenue sources.
