BBMP's 2nd phase of survey to spot tax defaulters

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is all set to conduct the second phase of its total station survey in the city.

The total station survey is an exercise to find out the number of tax defaulters, (mostly commercial establishments) who have undervalued their properties and penalise them to ensure that don’t evade property tax.

This time around, the BBMP will identify the top 1,000 revenue generating properties in the city and will serve notices to all tax defaulters who have under-assessed their properties.

“We will conduct the total station survey for the top 1,000 revenue generating properties. The properties are mostly commercial malls, high-rise buildings and we will serve notices to them and collect property tax from them to increase our revenue,” said BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad.

However, this move comes at a time when the civic body has failed to recover taxes from the first phase of the total station survey conducted in 2017.

Initially, the BBMP began the project as a pilot and assessed 10-12 properties. Later, when Jayamahal ward corporator M K Gunashekar was the chairman of standing committee of Tax and Finance, the civic body had identified close to 80 high-rises and tech parks which had under-assessed properties and it was estimated that the BBMP would earn close to Rs 500 crore from these properties after serving notices. All this has remained on paper.

“The process is going on
at snail’s pace,” said Gunashe ar. “We had laid a foundation during our time by identifying under-assessed properties. All that the officials had to do was to serve notices to buildings and collect tax. But it is unfortunate that they have not taken proper action,” he said.

Prasad also said that this is one of the moves by the BBMP to mobilise its revenue collection, as it is facing a huge deficit.