Councillors and civic officials in Salt Lake are conducting door-to-door visits to deliver property tax bills. The residents are also being requested to pay the tax soon.

The Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation board had held a meeting last week and decided to visit homes and businesses with the request to pay property tax because the lockdown had led to the civic coffers drying up.

An official said an “aggressive” promotional campaign for online payment would be launched because most residents were avoiding queues.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation’s property tax collection in April-May came down by over 85 per cent compared with the same period last year.

“We are in a serious fund crunch. All ward offices have been asked to actively collect property tax in Salt Lake,” Debashis Jana, a mayoral council member of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation said.

An official said only 10 per cent of the township’s taxpayers pay property tax online. This could be because Salt Lake has a sizeable population of senior citizens, many of whom are not comfortable making payments online.

A councillor said: “In my ward alone, the amount of outstanding property tax is more than Rs 12 crore.”