Bangalore: The BBMP maybe on its deathbed financially, but the civic agency has the potential to earn at least Rs 4,500 crore property tax per annum and get itself out of the red.
If the property tax is collected properly, the BBMP can tide over its financial crisis in the next three years.
The estimation was given by Yediyur corporator N.R. Ramesh, who has conducted an extensive survey on the number and nature of buildings across the city and the property tax payable by them.
Giving details at the palike council meeting on Tuesday, he said that the BBMP has over six lakh commercial buildings and over 16 lakh non-residential buildings within its limits.
In its eight zones, the BBMP has not less than 30 buildings which fetch over Rs 5 crore property tax per annum. About 60 buildings have the potential to bring in Rs 3 crore, 125 buildings Rs 2 crore, nearly 400 buildings with the potential for Rs 1 crore and around 1,300 buildings Rs 50 lakh.
These have been classified as high-value assessment structures.
The BBMP has, in its limits, 1.1 lakh industrial buildings, 22,000 apartment structures, 8,000 paying guest accommodations, 53 tech parks, 107 commercial malls, 891 marriage halls, 1,200 party halls, 441 star hotels, 2,450 lodges and 2,446 medical institutions.
Ramesh said that unfortunately, the BBMP authorities are so inept that only 25 per cent of the property tax is being collected in the city, while the BBMP revenue wing is struggling to meet the target of Rs 2,000 crore per annum.
The officials need not measure the buildings. Instead, they can take details of the sanctioned building plan from the BBMP official website and re-validate them to fix the property tax. Even wrong declarations made in the Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) can be detected with this method, he suggested.
Earlier, Congress opposition leader in the council Manjunath Reddy said that despite Comptroller and Auditor General Report ordering the recovery of Rs 750 crore, the BBMP has failed miserably to collect it.
