BBMP faces pushback from revenue officers over property record digitisation

Bengaluru: Barely a week after launching an ambitious project to digitise property records and broaden revenue collection in the city, the BBMP is facing resistance from unexpected quarters.

Revenue officers, crucial for the project's success, are unhappy with the initiative, citing the need to visit 10 to 20 properties daily in addition to their regular tasks.

This month, the BBMP introduced two initiatives: the digitisation of 'A' and 'B' khata certificates to eliminate manual certificates susceptible to misuse, and geo-tagging of properties to curb property tax pilferage.

These activities involved physical property inspections, identifying tax evaders, issuing showcause and demand notices, randomly verifying high-rise buildings, and the potential issuance of seizure warrants to property tax defaulters.

Revenue officers are voicing strong resentment towards some of these activities, asserting they are already overwhelmed with election-related work, property surveys, e-Aasthi, Sakala, police department cases, and responding to RTI applications.

Former councillor NR Ramesh filed a complaint with BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Girinath, alleging inhumane treatment of revenue officers by burdening them with multiple tasks, calling it a violation of human rights and labour laws.

While some in the BBMP disagreed, arguing that increasing property tax revenue is the core responsibility of revenue officers, the displeasure over visiting 10 to 20 properties daily was dismissed by many, given that revenue officers were provided with cars and support staff for assistance.

Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar had set the target of increasing property tax revenue, expressing dissatisfaction with the annual collection of Rs 3,500 crore.

He believed Bengaluru should ideally be paying double the tax, but suspected irregularities through tax evasion or underassessment of property tax.