GHMC to use GIS for property tax assessment

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation will soon leverage on Geographic Information System (GIS) to capture spatial data in order to assess property tax payable by each establishment.

Through GIS, the domestic, commercial and other establishments of a particular area will be identified and allotted unique numbers, to know if they are under the tax network or not.

A pilot will be taken up in Moosapet soon, to experiment with this system, and based on its success, it will be replicated throughout the city, Municipal Commissioner in-charge Bharati Hollikeri said at an event organised to celebrate record collection of property tax through the ‘Early Bird’ offer.

As of now, the property tax payees to the corporation stand at a little over 12 lakh, inclusive of all kinds of establishments. This amounts to gross under assessment considering the burgeoning real estate development in the city and surrounding areas.

The GHMC is trailing many of its sister municipalities in use of technology for property tax assessment. The Department of Municipal Administration had long started using satellite information to map the properties and levy tax accordingly in all the 72 urban local bodies in its purview.