Rural Development department eyes biz establishments in gram panchayats for revenue

Rural Development Minister Priyank Kharge speaks during the session in the Legislative Council at Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi on Friday. DH Photo/M S Manjunath

Belagavi: As part of its efforts to generate revenue, the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) is hoping to tap into IT parks, and similar commercial parks on the outskirts of Bengaluru and other urban centres, which fall within the purview of gram panchayats (GPs). Furthermore, the department is hoping to streamline property tax collection to maximise revenue generation.

RDPR Minister Priyank Kharge, presenting the data to the Legislative Council in Belagavi on Friday, said that the department had found that of the 1.41 crore properties across the state, 8.07 lakh were under the purview of 32 GPs outside Bengaluru Urban. Priyank said that the department had compiled the data through a manual survey. However, several members called for the data to be re-verified.

Pointing out that the primary objective of the entire exercise was to augment revenue through property tax collection, Priyank added, “Our department is trying to increase tax collection by regularising payment from all IT parks and other commercial establishments within the administrative purview of GPs across the state.”

The minister presented the data to the Council while replying to a query from BJP MLC N Ravi Kumar. The BJP MLC pointed out that the information furnished by the government was wrong, and misleading.

Ravi Kumar said that he had entrusted the task of compiling the list of commercial properties across the 32 GPs on the outskirts of Bengaluru City to an NGO. “While the government data shows that there are 8.07 lakh properties, the survey conducted by the NGO indicates that the actual number is much higher – there are an additional 5.25 lakh properties,” said the BJP MLC, calling for the data presented by the panchayat officers to be scrutinised again.

Conceding that property tax collection in some GPs was dogged by irregularities, Priyank said, “We won’t ignore it. To that end, the first step we are taking is to stop manual generation of tax bills by issuing point-of-sale machines to ensure that there are no irregularities.”