HYDERABAD: Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) is poised to create a record in property tax collection this year as it has already collected Rs 22 crore as property tax till date.
Property tax collected till now is much above last year’s collection. Only Rs 17 crore property tax was collected in the last financial year. With huge spurt in property tax collections the SCB officials are on cloud nine.
“We have put a special emphasis on property tax collection this year. Besides creating widespread awareness on payment of property tax, defaulters of property tax were dealt with strictly. We have also taken up special drives and cracked down on defaulters. As a result many property owners have voluntarily come forward to pay property tax this year, resulting in huge rise in the collections,” said Syed Akbar Ali, SCB tax superintendent.
Besides strict measures taken up, changes in property tax rules have also contributed to the rise in collections this year. While property tax was calculated by evaluating the area of ground floor of a property earlier, this year tax was collected for first and second floors also, Syed Akbar further said.
Though officials were elated over the record property tax collected till date, they are making all efforts to collect as much as possible till March 31.
‘’We have fixed a target of Rs 25 crore for this financial year. As Rs 22 crore has been already collected, we are confident that we can easily achieve our target,’’ Akbar said.