The ‘Namma Chennai’ app, launched in January 2018, was primarily designed by the Greater Chennai Corporation for grievance redressal. It had been planning to introduce an array of services into its fold, including payment of property tax. Now, a year later, tax payments can finally be made through the mobile application.
The app
Chennai:
Property owners in Chennai could pay tax through net banking, debit card, credit card, RTGS/NEFT and UPI (Unified Payments Interface).
The civic body collected nearly Rs 595 crore property tax on Friday. “During the same period last year, we had collected Rs 502 crore. Once the revision of property tax is over, collection would go up. We have still managed to collect Rs 5 crore a day, which is Rs 2 crore higher than the previous year,” an official said.
Meanwhile, a press release, detailing upon the features now available on the app, stated, “Chennai Corporation has launched “Namma Chennai” with facilities of generating birth/death certificates, property tax collection status and receipt download, professional tax collection status and receipt download and trade licence status and receipt download.”
The release added that the application is available on both Android and IOS and 48,212 citizens have already downloaded it. As many as 18,735 complaints have also been received and 18,528 have been solved.
However, the civic body is yet to clear the complaints pertaining to recent property tax revision and the official claimed that appeals are being disposed of. “Property owners who had filed appeals (within 15 days of receiving revision notice), can wait before paying tax. Others should pay up.” The Corporation has fixed a target of Rs 1,200 crore property tax collection this financial year.