Tax at a ‘powerful cost’: BBMP’s revenue plan faces glitch

Bengaluru: Although the BBMP had big plans to combine property tax with electricity bills for better property tax collection, the plans have been shelved due to technical glitches. In order for the plan to succeed, exact details were needed about the number of commercial and residential units in the BBMP jurisdiction.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior revenue official said that the data available with Bescom was not matching with the number of commercial units in the BBMP. The BBMP IT wing is trying to match the RR number appearing on the electricity bill with that of the property on the same locality and road. However, technically it has been not possible to ascertain the exact number of commercial units.

“Usually, the property owner will be truthful to Bescom while obtaining the commercial electricity meter. But they do not always declare their property as commercial, simply to evade levy of commercial tax. As a result, although prima-facie a large number of commercial establishments are in place, the property tax collection has been far too low,” said the official.

They found that in most cases, the Property Identity (PID) number did not match with the Bescom’s RR number, so they couldn’t integrate them. Both the BBMP and Bescom officials even did a physical survey. Bescom was asked to integrate at least ward-wise, but that too failed, explained an official.

The PID numbers are scientific – each number consists of, ward number, street number and house number, whereas the Bescom bills are not based on street numbers. The Bescom provides electricity connections randomly, based on the demand and request by the consumers. The usual procedure is to take a copy of the sale deed of the property and issue an electricity connection. The Bescom official does division-wise physical meter readings. This prevents evasion of the payment of electricity bills to Bescom, said sources.

As per the of Karnataka Municipal Corporation (KMC) Act 1976, the BBMP has the provision to revalidate 20 per cent of the properties declared under the Self Assessment Scheme. Which means the revenue officials will be asked to physically verify the commercial activities and issue a notice. Additionally, a street-wise survey will be conducted to ascertain the number of commercial properties.