Hyderabad: With the Geographic Information System helping some Urban Local Bodies improve property tax collection, the state government has decided to extend the system to all urban local bodies in the state.
Property tax is the main source of revenue for urban local bodies, but due to various reasons, the ULBs are unable to ensure 100 % property tax collection in the existing system.
To improve the revenue collection, the municipal department proposed GIS-based property tax on a pilot basis in one ward each of eight urban local bodies.
GIS will help map all properties into GIS-based spatial data format such as shape files. The system integrates crucial information like unique property tax number, house number, name of the owner or tenant, usage of property —whether residential or commercial, type of building based on roof and floor, nature of the property such as ordinary or posh and locality and other information.
The results were encouraging, since the increase was around 80 per cent. Following this, the municipal department has decided to extend GIS to all urban local bodies and completed GIS mapping in 36 municipalities, while the work is in progress in 22 other municipalities.
In the present system, due to absence of proper assessment of properties, underassessment remains a major problem. There is no proper mechanism to check underassessment of properties resulting in loss of revenue to ULBs.
The GIS system gives a detailed picture of properties and a unique number is assigned to each property ward-wise and area-wise. Tax officials then visit the property and to collect the property tax.
After implementing GIS, the property tax collection in 34 municipalities rose by about Rs 37 crore in one year. Director, municipal administration, T.K. Sridevi said that work the GIS pilot project was started in the second half of 2016-17 and in a record six months, the entire survey was completed.
She told DC that with the implementation of GIS revenue increased by 26.48 per cent. Ms Sridevi said that the main purpose of implementing GIS was to improve revenue in ULBs without actually revising the tax rates.
