Telangana nets Rs 703 cr property tax in FY 20-21
Despite Covid, 703.32 crore collected as against Rs.561.05 crore in 2019-20
Hyderabad: Telangana is perhaps among the very few States that has not allowed the Covid year (2020-21) to be a drag on its performance, be it in the agriculture sector, where it is poised for a record crop through its strategic planning, overall economic growth or for that matter, even bringing down the unemployment rate compared to the national average in the face of the pandemic.
Given this background, it should not come as a surprise that the State government bettered its performance in collection of property tax in 2020-21, when it recorded Rs 703.32 crore in property tax collections from 141 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) against Rs.561.05 crore in 2019-20.
This excludes the Rs.155.26 crore collected under One Time Settlement (OTS) scheme and Rs.153.87 crore collections through building permissions.
Municipal Administration department officials told Telangana Today that the total property tax collection could be higher by a few notches by the time the financial closure takes place on March 31 since it is done manually. The total collection details will be announced in a couple of days.
In the 141 ULBs, there are 2,027,591 assessments and officials managed to record 87.52 per cent collection. Among all the districts, Medchal-Malkajgiri topped the chart with Rs.119.35 crore in property tax collection, followed by Ranga Reddy district at Rs.101.16 crore and Nizamabad district Rs.68.19 crore.
Kumram Bheem district recorded the lowest collection of Rs.1.5 crore, followed at the bottom of the table by Jayashankar Bhupalpally district at Rs.3.44 crore and Jangaon district Rs.3.46 crore. The number of buildings assessed for tax collection was low compared to other districts, the officials said.
A senior MAUD official pointed out that this was a remarkable achievement since the pandemic had played havoc last year. “This is phenomenal particularly because businesses and markets were shut for nearly four months from March to June,” the official pointed out.
The department, as part of its strategy to improve collections, took up initiatives such as launching of e-Pattana Sevalu, Chatbot, conducting tax melas and OTS scheme. Of all the initiatives, enhancement of e-Pattana Sevalu software application helped tax payers a lot and made things convenient for them, he said, adding that all 141 ULBs and all services have now been brought under single platform through a new software application called E-Pattana Soukaryam, which is an integrated web-based application platform providing services by resolving the all tax related grievances which aided in increasing the tax collection..
Another important initiative that helped was Chatbot service.Launched as a dedicated WhatsApp channel to ease the process of tax payment for citizens across the State, this service is free-to-use and will also function as a source for up-to-date information on tax dues.
Citizens can send a ‘Hi’ to CDMA, Telangana’s official WhatsApp account on +91 90002 53342, to easily access these services and pay their taxes conveniently via a debit card, credit card or internet banking or UPI payments. The chatbot is currently available in English and Telugu. A total of 2.6 lakh hits are recorded till date in chatbot.
To help property owners pay their taxes and address their grievances, tax melas were conducted in all ULBs. Unlike in the past, local authorities were delegated powers to address the grievances of tax payers, including high tax component, wrong assessment and others. Earlier, all such issues had to be resolved at CDMA and this was consuming lot of time, besides making the tax payers to delay the payments, the official explained.
One time settlement scheme (OTS) eased the tax payers to clear their accumulated arrears with 90 per cent waiver on penalty amount. This scheme was announced in the month of July 2020 with a condition of paying the entire tax principal amount accrued till the year 2019-20 together with ten percent interest on total arrears at one go.
This scheme was applied to all non-government properties in all the ULBs in the State. This time bound scheme was implemented from August 1, 2020 to September 15, 2020. Later, the government extended the scheme till March 31, 2021.
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