HMC all set to launch online tax payment system on June 25

Kolkata: The Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) has set June 25 as the deadline to introduce the online payment system of property tax.

This comes after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed the civic body to introduce the same as early as possible. She gave the direction while presiding over the administrative review meeting in Howrah on June 7.

HMC had been working rigorously for the past few months to introduce the online property tax payment system after the decision to implement the same was taken in a high-level meeting headed by Mayor Dr Rathin Chakraborty.

Arun Roy Chowdhury, member, Mayor-in-Council for Tax and Licence, said: "Chief Minister had directed us to ensure its introduction as early as possible. The work was expedited and it is expected to get introduced on June 25."

It may be mentioned that a major part of the work to introduce the system is almost complete and the remaining work is being carried out in a war footing following the direction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Around 1.70 lakh people will be benefited with the introduction of the online system to pay property tax.

It will ensure better civic amenities to the residents of Howrah as people will no more have to visit the headquarters of the civic body to pay off their property tax.

Instead, they can do the same just by logging into the website of the civic body. It will bring an end to the days of standing in long queues to pay property tax.

Earlier, it was possible to pay off taxes of the current month without paying the old ones. In such cases, mainly a section of real estate developers used to pay the current taxes saying that the same of the previous months are clear but they have lost the documents.

However, it is no longer possible as the HMC authorities have taken necessary steps in this connection and the same will be done with introduction of the online system as well.

But, with heavy lightning on Tuesday some of the systems, which are already in place, got a bit affected. The civic body authorities have already taken up necessary steps to ensure timely completion of the work.

It may be mentioned that the system of making online payment of property tax is already in place under Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).