BHUBANESWAR: Worried over poor revenue collections, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to launch a 15-day tax assessment drive for households and traders in the city beginning Monday.
The civic body said an enforcement drive will also be launched after the assessment is complete to take action against traders who are not registering themselves or trying to evade taxes.
An official from the BMC revenue wing said against the target of Rs 100 crore from property tax for 2024-25, the civic body has so far been able to collect only about Rs 40 crore. While 60 per cent holding tax is yet to be collected, the generation of tax towards trade license fee and user charges has also been disappointing, he said.
He further revealed that against a total of 1.5 lakh odd households in the city, only half are paying holding tax. Similarly, though around 40,000 traders and 25,000 street vendors are doing business in the city, a large chunk of them are failing to pay user fee, trade licence fee as well as property tax.
Keeping in view the low tax collection, the civic body has drafted a standard operating procedure (SOP) basing on which the assessment and enforcement drive will be taken up.
As per the SOP, while all commercial and residential properties will be covered under the assessment drive, focus will be on high-demand ones. “The properties will be categorised as high-demand, medium-demand and low-demand and collection taken up accordingly. Red notices will be issued to the defaulters and penalty levied as per applicable under the norms of the corporation,” the officer said.
As many as 39 squads, each comprising one ward officer, two security personnel, one sanitary inspector, one Swachh Sathi or other BMC staff and one staff for commercial areas, will be formed to take up the assessment. The squad will also identify new properties - both residential and commercial - and assign provisional holding numbers besides issuing demand notice specifying payment within seven days, and initiate steps for collection of the same.
It will also verify trade licenses and user fee payment status of commercial establishments, both old and new, and issue notices for collection of the same within seven days. Each squad will be required to cover at least 50 properties daily, covering all three revenue verticals - holding tax, trade license fee and user charges.
The persistent defaulters will face seizure of commercial property, BMC officials said adding, legal action may also be initiated against the tax defaulters who fail to comply despite multiple notices.