The Thiruvananthapuram Corporation's property tax collection has witnessed a major jump in the first four months of the current financial year, compared to the same period in the previous year. The total property tax collection in the months of April to July this year was 21.01 crore, in comparison to the ₹11.16 crore collected during this same period in 2021-22. The maximum tax collection was in the month of May, with ₹6.05 crore collected in property taxes.
Parallel to the jump in property tax collection has been a a sharp increase in online payments. While only 4% of the payments during the same period in 2021-22 was done online, now it has jumped to as much as 35%. Corporation officials attribute the jump in online payments to an aggressive campaign, including a 50-minute video on how to do online payments, to make people shift to online mode and reduce the load at the counters.
Controversy erupts
The property tax payments have been showing an upward trend since October last year after a controversy erupted in the civic body over misappropriation of funds by some officials in zonal offices of the Corporation. It led the Corporation to tighten the whole system as well as revamp the Sanchaya software used for property tax collection, which was beset with database issues. A major drive was launched to clean up the database.
According to Corporation officials, much of the property tax database has now been updated, but problems remain in the Vizhinjam zone. The records for buildings constructed before 2016 in the areas which were earlier part of a panchayat are yet to be updated. Field-level inspections were conducted, in which the total number of buildings has been pegged at close to 12,000. This will be compared with the existing registers to identify the unauthorised constructions. Steps to regularise them will be taken afterwards.
Since the controversies over fund misappropriation, the Corporation has been publishing the list of defaulters in each ward by the 10th of every month. This has become another way to ensure that all payments, including those done offline, are being recorded in the system.
