No mechanism in place to monitor property tax payment in civic bodies

The civic bodies in the capital have been losing crores of rupees annually due to this. Over one lakh people have duped South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) sicne trifurcation by not paying their property tax on time even after getting the rebate. The SDMC alone has lost over Rs 10 crore in 2013-14.

‘There is simply no mechanism to monitor our online payment system. Even after getting the rebate, 1,00,132 people did not pay their property tax on time. We had lost revenue of over Rs 10 crore due to this’, revealed Rajesh Pathak, assessor and collector of SDMC, during his presentation in standing committee meeting.

Online property tax payers in the city are entitled to get 15 per cent rebate if they pay before the due date – 30 June. On hearing the complaint of Pathak, Satish Upadhyaya, chairman of standing committee in SDMC asked for the dues to be recovered at the earliest. 

‘These defaulters must be identified and our dues must be recovered at the earliest. They should also be penalised for duping SDMC’, he said.

Surprisingly, the civic body had also rewarded employees of property tax department in 2012-13 with cash incentives for ‘good performance. Property tax department is one of the main source of income for SDMC. 

However, it has been observed that collection from property tax has been on decline consistently. Less than 30 per cent of people pay their property tax in the city. 

In SDMC, there are 14,91,849 properties while the tax has only been received for 4,24,527 structures.