Bengaluru: As BBMP’s property tax collection continues to underperform, the civic body is planning to take a series of drastic measures, including seizing movable property, against the defaulters.
During her latest meeting with the BBMP top brass, Mayor Gangambike exhorted the BBMP officials to set up target based approach to boost collection.
She said a list of top 50 defaulters will be prepared in the eight BBMP zones and every 15 days the Joint Commissioner will monitor the progress and ward level officials should work towards improving property tax collection.
While there has been a steep rise in the number of properties in the city (more than 19 lakh), the corresponding tax collection has not kept pace.
The Mayor lamented that property tax collection, which is a major source of revenue for the civic body, has failed to meet the target by a wide margin.
It may be noted that for the year 2018-19, BBMP has set a target of Rs 3,100 crore, but it has so far not even collected Rs 2,000 crore.
“BBMP officials are armed with lot of power to collect revenue from the defaulters. We have been resorting to methods such as beating drums in front of the properties of big defaulters and ‘naming and shaming them’ all of them hasn’t helped much. Laws do not permit us to lock up or seize properties of defaulters but we do have powers to seize immovable properties. This can be furniture, fridge, washing machine and others.” Gangambike said.
With the Lok Sabha elections fast approaching, BBMP’s Revenue Department officials are expected to get busy with election duty. Hence the Palike needs to mop up its revenue before the officials get busy.
The list of top 50 defaulters will be prepared in eight BBMP zones and every 15 days the joint commissioner will monitor the progress and using the powers the ward level officials must improve collection, Mayor said.
