Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Property tax details available online

By Karthik Subramanian

CHENNAI OCT. 27. Property taxpayers in five of the 10 Chennai Corporation zones can now view tax information online, thanks to a new move by the civic agency towards e-governance.

The trial run is currently on, and the information can be accessed on the web site, www.chennaicorporation.com, for zones 1-4 (covering Tondiarpet, Basin Bridge, Pulianthope and Ayanavaram) and 10 (Mylapore). The assesses can log on to the web site for details of pending property tax, under the project coordinated by the private company, Web Duniya.

The data for all 10 zones are expected to be online within a week. The next step will be online payment of property tax through an electronic clearance system.

In September, the elected council passed a resolution to procure a leased line for networking all Corporation wards and zones. A private company, Tulip IT Services, was selected for maintenance of the leased line and services. Further, the Corporation has identified the ICICI Bank as a sponsor for its online property tax payment and initiated talks with the Reserve Bank for putting the system in place. It has also begun negotiations with other nationalised banks for online payment.

The Commissioner, M.P. Vijayakumar, said the project was being worked out to simplify the burden on the taxpayer and better utilise the workforce of assessors and tax collectors. The online system is expected to be ready in time to facilitate payment for the first half-year of 2004.

Defaulters will be exposed

The system will also expose the top defaulters of the city, said D. P. Yadav, Deputy Commissioner (Revenue and Finance). ``We will list the top defaulters on the web site.''

At present, the Corporation had a tax assessee base of about five lakhs.

The annual property tax demand was close to Rs. 194.5 crores, he said.

Earlier this year, the council passed a resolution, seeking to amend the Chennai City Municipal Corporation Act for including penal provisions for late payment. It proposed to levy a monthly penalty of Rs. 2 for every Rs. 100 of the tax amount, payable after the due date of 15 days from the beginning of every half-year. The proposal is pending government approval.

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