The Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department has warned that property tax defaulters will face legal notices under the provisions of the new Telangana Municipalities Act with just about 25 days to go for the final payment to be made.
However, it is now clear that the missing demand notices, properties and even erstwhile villages from the tax portal is because of the lacunae in the newly introduced online payment system. Much before the merger of 175 gram panchayats into the adjoining municipalities and formation of new ones, the officials had decided to go for a revamped tax portal considering the new attributes and enhanced coverage of more local bodies.
Senior officials, wishing to remain anonymous, explained that the next generation system developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) took a while for being developed and by the time the new system was ready for testing and trials, the municipal elections came into picture throwing the entire exercise into a disarray.
Data migration and integration from the erstwhile gram panchayats gathered from the e-panchayat and also from the old municipalities was taken up in right earnest but what it required before rolling out the exercise for the citizens to make use of the system is take up extensive testing with random sampling from various urban local bodies (ULBs), they said.
Most of the gaps that have come to the fore during the payment process of the property owners and also during the self-assessment of the property tax could have been detected during the testing phase itself if it was rigorous and the system would have been more robust, testify senior officials.
While there is no sign of any corrective step so far to improve digital network, the municipal officials focus continue to be on collecting the monies by putting the pressure on bill collectors, supervisory teams and the commissioners on a daily basis till the month-end.
