GIS-based property tax system in 2006

GIS-based property tax system in 2006
The new property tax system will see a revenue jump of 50 percent for the State, says R Jayaprakash
The Times of India


Property tax payment at the touch of a button - this is what the GISbased tax collection project envisages. Across 57 urban local bodies (ULBs) including seven City Municipal Councils (CMCs) and one Town Municipal Council (TMC) of Bangalore, this hitech and first-of-its-kind system in the country will be operational by December, and will be adopted for tax collection in all of Karnataka shortly.

Says Nilay Mitash, Director, Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA), "our pilot project in Byatarayanapura CMC proved very effective and now we are ready with the required property data in two ULBs - Kengeri and Mahadevapura (Whitefield). In the first week of August we will be implementing this system in Kengeri and then in Mahadevapura".

The project, under the banner of E-governance Foundation, is costing Rs 7 crores and is expected to revolutionise property tax collection. The software for GIS is provided by Infosys, free of cost. A survey conducted by the DMA as part of the project revealed that taxes were collected for only 11,260 properties in Kengeri and 35,000 in Bommanahalli, while there are 30,000 and 78,000 properties in these localities respectively. While the revenue generated through property tax stands at Rs 120 crores as of now, the collection after implementing GIS is expected to go up to Rs 240 crores.

On the status of the project, Mitash said, "we have over 500 engineers working rigorously to collect data related to properties. Senior programmers and nodal officers are coordinating with them. Every week we take stock of the situation and prepare a ranking report that gives the details of percentages of work being carried out. As of now, 80 percent of the work is over and by December the data should be up in the server".

On the need for such a system, he said, "the success of the capital value systembased self-assessment scheme will not only depend on the people's participation but also on the type of management information system developed on each property at the ULB level. It has come to our knowledge that many properties had not been declared for property tax, vacant spaces had been left out, and commercial users were declared otherwise, undermining severely the tax collections. The ULBs are, therefore, in need of a GIS- based property detail structure".

The database will have a separate entity with a unique identity for each property. All the collateral information on a property will be linked to the property identity. This would include tax information. Once in four years a survey exercise will be carried out and if any mismatch occurs in the data it will be rectified immediately. "What actually happens in the end is that everything will be on record and structured. Names of streets and identification of each of the buildings will be at finger tips", he says. For example, whenever a building owner submits a self-assessment scheme form, the authority will refer to the property register software. The software will show all the details of the property to help the officer concerned evaluate the submission.

What the project envisages…
Gather authentic information for use in collection of property tax
Create a map-linked database to enable systematic urban area management
Create a basic database that would be useful for planning the growth of urban areas
Create an interface with the public to help them access information Ensure availability of data for all Government Departments
Create base maps of the city, incorporating all properties and roads