ONGOLE: To ensure transparency in the revenue generation of gram panchayats, the State government has reportedly decided to start house/property tax collection in villages through a mobile application. As part of its implementation, the Panchayat Raj department has been training panchayat secretaries and staff on the intricacies of the new system.
“The department is introducing a mobile app-based tax collection system soon. As such, training programmes are being conducted for all panchayat Secretaries. The system will bring more transparency in the tax collection,” GV Narayana Reddy, Prakasam district panchayat officer told Express.
In Prakasam district, the government aims to collect `83.69 crore per annum from 6.75 lakh tax assessments in 1,048 village panchayats. Around 80 per cent of the works regarding physical verification of properties, which includes details such as owner’s name, property type and name and previous assessment particulars, have been completed. The data have been fed to the National Informatics Center (NIC) portal.
Officials said there were some incidents in which panchayat staff misappropriated tax collection amounts, which didn’t come to the notice of the higher-ups. Last Tuesday, a training programme was conducted for the staff at Kondepi and Kandukur segments.