BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has collected over Rs 4,800 crore in property tax till March 30. The civic body was aiming to cross Rs 5,000 crore and set a new record this year. As citizens pay their dues only at the last minute to avoid penalties, the Palike is hoping that the collections will significantly jump on Monday and a final figure will be arrived at on or before April 3.
The target set for property tax collection by BBMP for the financial year 2024-25 was Rs 5,200 crore, of which BBMP was able to mop up Rs 4,800 crore till March 30. Though there is a shortfall of Rs 400 crore, officials claim that the BBMP has the highest property tax collection in India, and this year’s accruals saw an increase of a whopping Rs 1,000 crore. They attribute the jump to administrative decisions, including auctioning of properties of chronic defaulters to recover the dues, use of information technology systems and repeated follow-ups by officials from the BBMP revenue department
Special Commissioner (Revenue) Munish Moudgil said the civic body aims to collect the maximum possible arrears and tax collection will go on till midnight of March 31.
“Quite a bit of collection of arrears in the last few days has been through manual cheques and demand drafts (especially dues from government properties) which are yet to be accounted fully in overall collections. It will be compiled after March 31,” he said, adding that a clear picture of the total collection for 2024-25 will emerge by April 2 or 3.
For the financial year 2025-26, BBMP has set a target of Rs 5,716 crore and the civic body is aiming to reach the goal by identifying properties that are outside the tax purview and capacity building by providing training to the revenue staff.