BENGALURU: Bengaluru West City Corporation (BWCC) has implemented Artificial Intelligence (AI) to reach out to property owners who were unaware of their pending property tax, had forgotten to pay, or had accumulated arrears over the years.
Through this technology, an automated AI call provided citizens with complete information regarding their pending amount, the year it was due and how to pay it online.
Between March and June, through the AI voice agent, a total of 4,54,908 calls were made across 64 wards (out of the old 198 wards), successfully reaching 59,604 property owners in their mother tongue (Kannada). This automated AI call provided citizens with complete information regarding their pending amount, the year it was due, and how to pay it online.
As a result of this campaign, 26,962 property owners agreed to pay their taxes, paving the way for the collection of arrears worth Rs 35.11 crore. Among them, 10,303 people specified a concrete date for payment and 5,747 promised to pay soon.
This initiative also helped rectify incorrectly maintained records over the years. As many as 17,314 inactive phone numbers and 6,315 phone numbers belonging to others (former property owners) were identified, and the lists were updated.
Additionally, it was confirmed that 4,577 properties had no dues at all, saving those citizens from receiving unnecessary notices.
Reaching tax defaulters was a challenging task for the corporation, even more so than identifying them. Making lakhs of phone calls within a single tax cycle would have required a massive call centre larger than a complete tax establishment, which could have disrupted the survey and field recovery work of assistant revenue officers (AROs). However, since AI handled the initial phase of calls, it allowed officials to focus solely on high-priority cases that required their attention.
Commissioner Rajendra K V said, “Even though we knew who the defaulters were, we needed technological assistance to speak with them individually, persuasively, and in their own language within a single tax cycle. That is now possible.”