Officials must prioritise tax collection to strengthen the corporation’s revenue base
BENGALURU
Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) Chief Commissioner Maheshwar Rao has directed officials to identify properties with large outstanding dues across the five city corporations under the GBA and initiate strict measures to recover pending property tax.
Chairing a virtual review meeting on Monday on property tax collection, e-khata, and the conversion of B-Khata to A-Khata, he instructed officials to trace major defaulters, clear long-pending revision cases, and ensure timely recovery of overdue taxes. Rao stressed the need to locate individuals and properties currently outside the tax network and bring them under the tax ambit without delay.
He further directed Commissioners of all five city corporations to prioritise property tax recovery, hold daily review meetings with revenue officials, and issue necessary instructions to boost revenue collection.
Special Commissioner (Revenue) Munish Moudgil, speaking at the meeting, said the corporations have been set a target of ₹6,700 crore for the current year, of which ₹3,533 crore has been collected. He emphasised the need to accelerate property tax recovery, especially from revision cases and long-standing defaulters.
Currently, the five city corporations together have 24,000 property tax revision cases amounting to nearly ₹170 crore. Another 22,000 defaulters owe ₹598 crore. Officials were instructed to prioritise recovery of these dues.
Each corporation must prepare a list of 100 major revision cases and 100 high-value defaulters in every division. Revenue Inspectors and Revenue Collectors will be given clear recovery targets. Rao also directed officials to seal commercial properties wherever necessary to ensure compliance and speed up tax collection.
The meeting was attended by City Corporation Commissioners Rajendra Cholan, Pommala Sunil Kumar, DS Ramesh, KN Ramesh, Dr KV Rajendra, Additional Commissioners (Revenue), Joint Commissioners, NIC technical directors and other senior officials.
Applications for new khatas must be verified and processed without delay to boost revenue. Similarly, B-Khata to A-Khata conversion applications must be reviewed and completed within the stipulated timeframe, GBA Chief Commissioner Maheshwar Rao said.
