Hyderabad: A clueless Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has been projecting false property tax demands. Even though several structures have been demolished during road widening while taking up infrastructure projects, including the Strategic Road Development Programme, Metro rail and others, the corporation has not excluded any of them from its revenue generation list. What’s more worrying is that the corporation’s revenue wing has no idea about the number of properties demolished.
According to highly placed sources, the corporation has been displaying inaccurate property tax demands, with several properties either demolished during the road widening process or which have already been demolished and converted into apartments and mega malls, in prime areas of the city.
The field staff are hand-in-glove with property owners and are collecting the same property tax amounts. For instance, GHMC had acquired as many as 2,086 properties for the Metro Rail project and more than 800 properties were acquired for the SRDP. Even though there are no physical structures, the corporation officials have included them in the defaulters’ list. So, even though the property tax demand has been decreased, the corporation has been projecting false potential reports.
When queried about the same, a senior GHMC official admitted that several properties that were demolished are still included in the defaulters’ list, for the last three financial years. The officials said that deputy commissioners were instructed to collect accurate data of missing and reconstructed properties and submit the report by the end of February. The official also said that the corporation has made three categories in this regard, which includes partially affected properties, fully affected properties and properties which have been facing court cases.
The official said that when the demolished defaulters’ list was complete, it would display the list for the standing committee's approval.
