BDA’s property tax portal still offline after 25 days into fiscal year

Bengaluru: It has been 25 days into the new financial year, but the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has still not made its website ready to accept property tax payments.

What is more concerning is that this issue persists despite the BDA recently upgrading its website — without properly evaluating the need for such a change. Officials have now assured that the property tax portal will be operational by Saturday.

Over 1 lakh properties fall under the BDA’s property tax ambit. Most of these are sites developed by the BDA, but the layouts have not yet been handed over to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for various reasons. A significant number of property owners are also residents of flats built by the authority.

The delay in setting up the portal means many property owners will miss out on the 5 per cent early payment rebate that civic bodies typically offer.

One property owner said he visited both the old and new BDA websites, but neither allowed tax payments. “To pay tax, we are being forced to run around,” he remarked.

He also questioned the need for launching a new website when the old portal already maintained all payment records. “The new portal only shows payment history for the last year, as no data from the previous years was
migrated,” he added.

There also appears to be a recurring pattern of investing in website upgrades every time there is a leadership change at the BDA.

Similar issue in 2022

This is not the first time property owners have faced such unpreparedness from the BDA — a similar issue was reported in 2022 as well.

A senior BDA official explained that the portal was temporarily shut down as they were recalculating property tax rates. 

“We have already shared the site measurements and tax assessment updates with the Centre for e-Governance. The website will be ready in a day or two,” he said.

He acknowledged the delay and mentioned receiving calls from several property owners, including IAS officers.