Andhra Pradesh - Guntur   

GMC on revenue-generating exercise Spotlight

FEELING THE PINCH: People paying tax at a civic centre in Guntur Municipal Corporation building.

GUNTUR: The Guntur Municipal Corporation has been starved of finances ever since the general grants from the State Government dwindled and stark reality came to the fore that its citizens have not been paying the ‘right’ quantum of tax on time, nor the local body is paying attention on getting the dues realised.

Deficiency in providing civic amenities has been the trademark of the corporation though it is not totally irresponsible. As you sow, so you reap, goes the adage and probably citizens of Guntur are getting quality of civic amenities commensurate with what they have been paying.

The recent drive taken up by Deputy Commissioner N. Yadagiri Rao has exposed some of the so-called respected and influential people in the city, who have not been paying property tax for more than three to six years in large amounts, while many others are under-assessed.

For a municipal corporation, which has an annual property tax demand of Rs.23 crores, there was a cumulative outstanding of Rs.24.23 crores three months ago indicating the tax-compliance scenario. After some ‘innovative’ or ‘crude’ methods as some chose to call them, the GMC has been able to recover Rs.7.8 crores. Even after adopting the stick and carrot approach, ironically only 44,147 assessees out of the 1,14,800 chose to pay the due for the current financial year’s first half.

A steep hike in the property tax for non-residential buildings came in for a sharp criticism, but a Government Order issued recently has put a cap on the allowable hike to 100 per cent for buildings that are more than 25 years old and to a maximum of 150 per cent for the buildings of less than 25 years old. This GO has literally annulled the GMC’s property tax hike from October 1 and officials are already preparing revised tax rates for the 14,800 commercial buildings.

This move totally makes a slew of protests and bandh in the city meaningless. Municipal Commissioner Siddhartha Jain points out that prior to hike in the tax, the rates are much lower compared to Warangal, Tenali, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.

Not satisfied with the current total revenue of the GMC from all revenue and non-revenue sources at Rs.79 crore, the corporation plans to streamline the assessments by asking citizens to file an affidavit within a couple of months on the status of their building, measurements, vacant land and tax being paid so that it could cross verify and impose the right quantum.

All house owners, who have let out their premises, have been asked to disclose voluntarily on the owner-tenant status by October 31. If the owners fail to disclose or file false affidavits, heavy penalty will be levied. An additional 20 per cent of property tax will be levied on properties let out, which would bring at least a couple of crores to the GMC, Mr. Jain points out.

Several properties in posh localities have been assessed as RCC posh, though they should have been charged at only RCC ordinary structure and some others in slum areas are fit to be called RCC Posh, but have been let off by municipal staff as RCC ordinary. Correcting these will be taken up once people came forward with voluntary disclosure, says the commissioner.

Another major area on which GMC proposes to concentrate is Vacant Land Tax, which is not blocking their revenue, but giving them headaches in maintaining the sanitation in those patches. Once tackled, it proposes to raise at least Rs.5 crores from that.

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