Bengaluru civic body falls short of property tax collection by 35% this year

“The revenue officers and assistant revenue officers should pay more attention to the collection of property tax. Appropriate steps should be taken to collect the tax by issuing notices to defaulters in the respective wards. Necessary action should be taken to collect property tax from clubs and malls under the BBMP jurisdiction,” he said.

Earlier this month, the civic body had traced 20,000 property owners who had been paying lower property taxes by registering their properties as residential units though they were being put to commercial use.

The BBMP came across the discrepancy when it verified the data with Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) bills. It was found that while property owners have taken commercial power connections from BESCOM, they were paying property taxes under residential slabs.

Nath said that BESCOM databases are being checked to identify the defaulters. “The BBMP should issue a notice if a discrepancy is found. In order to reach the property tax collection target of the current line in all the eight zones under BBMP, the revenue officers and assistant revenue officers should be given a weekly target to collect property tax. The special commissioner of Revenue Department should hold a review meeting on the collection of property tax every week,” he added.

According to the data shared by the BBMP, the highest property tax collection was from Mahadevapura zone where Rs 693.18 crore was collected followed by East zone where Rs 500.15 crore was collected. Bommanahalli zone recorded a collection of Rs 291.86 crore, Dasarahalli zone (Rs 81.05 crore), Rajarajeshwari Nagar (Rs 186.44 crore), South zone (Rs 422.84 crore), West zone (Rs 298.68 crore) and Yelahanka zone (Rs 244.01 crore).