For the first time in its history, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has collected property tax of over Rs 5,000 crore. The tax assessment and collection department of BMC has collected Rs 5,132 crore towards property tax in 2017-18 as against their target of Rs 5,402 crore, which is Rs 285 crore more than the last financial year’s collection. Interestingly, just within a month (March 2018), the civic body recovered about Rs 1,386 crore, inching closer to its target for this fiscal. The collection by December 2017 was just Rs 3,066 crore. The department intensified its drive to meet its target at least to reach the collection made last year. Assessment inspectors and collectors were asked to be strict with defaulters. “We were instructed to seal the premises and disconnect water and electric supply of properties which have been long defaulting, which we did. This even resulted in tax payers moving court against the department. We even faced court decisions against us. However, many of them paid up, giving a boost to our collection,” said Devidas Kshirsagar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner for Tax Assessment and Collection department. The civic body lost its major source of revenue after it replaced Octroi, with the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Hence, property tax collection is considered as the other major source of revenue by the civic body. According to an official from the BMC, Assessment and Collection department, the property tax collected upto end of February 2018 was around Rs 3,746 crore. Last financial year, 2016-17, against the target of Rs 5,400 crore, the civic body managed to collect Rs 4,845 crore upto March 2017. After March 10, the BMC managed to recover the remaining property tax from defaulters raising the collection to Rs 5,132 crore. Following the highest property tax collection in the history of BMC, it felicitated two of its officers — Prahlad Kalkoti and Arvind Chavan (deputy assessor and collector of BMC) from the assessment and collection department with “officers of the month” award.
