Ghaziabad municipal body’s property tax collection highest ever at ₹296 cr

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad municipal corporation has raised its highest ever property-tax revenue collection of about ₹296 crore for the financial year 2023-24, officials said on Friday, adding that it could be possible with the help of tough measures.

According to official statistics of the municipal corporation, the tax collection during the financial year 2021-22 stood at ₹175.47 crore, which increased to ₹206.67 crore in 2022-23, and reached ₹296 crore in FY 2023-24.

“The tax collection is the highest ever in the history of the corporation. We achieved it through regular announcements and putting up hoardings across the city to make aware citizens about the benefits of pay up,” said Vikramaditya Malik, commissioner, Ghaziabad municipal corporation.

“We also made them aware that they could evade 12% penal interest on default payments. As part of enforcement, we also sealed about 1,200 commercial properties which defaulted and also disconnected sewer connections of about 250 households,” Malik added.

According to officials, the civic agency has a list of about 2,900 defaulters who have not paid the tax for the last one year or more, and the default tax is estimated to be ₹47.97 crore.

The figures indicate that the corporation in its five residential zones has an existence of about 452,569 properties. To be sure, the property tax includes three components – house tax, water tax, and sewage/drainage tax.

Officials said that they expect the revenue collection will almost double in the next four years when the agency implements its new tax structure.

“From April 1, we have imposed a new tax structure for new properties. The old properties will gradually come under the ambit of new tax structure in next four years as and when their tax assessment takes place. Once this is done, the tax revenue will double and the agency will be able to do better maintenance and civic infrastructure works in residential localities,” said corporation’s chief tax assessment officer Sanjeev Sinha.

Officials informed that they also encouraged citizens to make self-assessment of their properties while the agency officials also took up re-assessment of properties where additional construction took place.

Properties such as houses, malls, factories, and shopping complexes are subject to a revision process every four years in order to know if they have some additional construction. It is done either by self-assessment or by revenue inspectors.

Under the new tax structure, residential colonies have been grouped under three categories – A, B and C. Category A comprises prime and upscale localities; category B comprises localities that are less developed while category C comprises localities that are least developed, Sinha said.

The property tax is ascertained on rental values of the property.

Under the new structure, the corporation has proposed different per square foot rental value rates for ascertaining the tax in different, A, Bb or C categories. The old structure had uniform rental value rates for all properties in every residential locality.