The Calcutta Municipal Corporation will start visiting new housing comp-lexes and neighbourhoods to help people understand the nitty-gritty of property tax, Firhad Hakim, the chairman of the civic body’s board of administrators, said on Saturday.
The move to visit housing complexes and neighbourhoods or hold camps comes at a time when the civic body’s property tax collection has been badly hit because of the pandemic.
The Telegraph had in May reported that the civic body’s earnings from property tax had dipped by over 85 per cent for April-May compared to the same period last year. The earning for the two months last year was nearly Rs 230 crore while this year it is about Rs 39 crore.
Civic officials hope the visits would help shore up some revenue. “We will visit housing complexes with multiple towers or put up a camp at a strategic location in a locality so that we can reach out to a large number of people,” said an official.
The first such visit would be in apartments and neighbourhoods in Ballygunge on August 8, Hakim said. The next will be in Ward 58, which covers Tangra and Dhapa, and the third at Ward 82, whose coordinator is Hakim himself.
“We have named this programme ‘CMC at your doorstep’. People will not need to visit a CMC office to sort out their tax problems. After these wards, such visits would be done on demand from the ward coordinators across Calcutta,” Hakim said.
The CMC official said they planned to visit each place twice. On Day 1, people will be sensitised and if they have any issues they can put it before the civic officials. In the successive visit, the officials will produce the property tax bill after hearing out their grievances, if any. “There are many who have some minor disputes with the CMC but are not getting time to visit a CMC office. We can sort out such issues during these visits,” said the official.
But no payment of tax will be taken during these visits or camps, he said.
Someone can make an online payment through the CMC website and for cash payments they have to visit a CMC office, added the official.
The visits to the new housing complexes are aimed at making its residents acquainted with the tax evaluation and payment process of the CMC.
“Some people think tax payment is complicated. We will help them understand the modalities,” said the official.
Pending issues on mutation can also be discussed.
“The executive engineer of the borough will also accompany the tax team. People can bring any bad road to the notice of the engineer,” said Hakim.