Hyderabad civic body eyes unassessed properties to enhance revenue

HYDERABAD: With the Early Bird Scheme (EBS) on property tax coming to an end on May 31, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has now set its eyes to bring unassessed properties into property tax net to mop up its revenues.The GHMC is now focusing on newly constructed properties in the twin cities that have come up in recent times and bring them under property tax net. According to official data, 7,013 properties have been assessed from April 1 to May 31 this year and Rs 4.95 crore was collected covering all 30 GHMC circles against the expected Rs 11.38 crore.

The Town Planning wing of the GHMC issued 10,500 to 11,000 building permissions annually at the circle, zonal and head office level. Depending on the number of floors and plinth area, the building construction takes between one and three years for completion. After the completion of the building, property tax should be levied on such constructed buildings.

However, many house owners after constructing the building are not coming forward for assessment of their properties, only a few who have constructed multi-storeyed buildings, residential and commercial complexes as per the building norms are coming forward to obtain the Occupancy Certificate (OC). After obtaining the OC, their building automatically gets assessed and is brought into the property tax net.

Sources said that many owners in the city after constructing the houses are not getting their properties assessed, leading to a huge revenue loss to the civic body.Those that do not require an OC should be identified in the field inspection and the property tax should be assessed. Also, it is the responsibility of the people to pay the property tax from the time the construction is completed, but half of them do not care to get their assessment done, they said. Realising this, the GHMC took up the assessment of newly constructed properties through bill collectors and tax inspectors. 

Around 11k permissions given annually
The Town Planning wing of the GHMC issued 10,500 to 11,000 building permissions annually at the circle, zonal and head office level. Depending on the number of floors and plinth area, the building construction takes between one and three years for completion. After the completion of the building, property tax should be levied on such constructed buildings