South Delhi civic body plans doorstep collection of property tax

NEW DELHI: To help citizens file their property tax in a time-bound manner, South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has planned to engage mobile sahayaks in each zone.

These sahayaks will visit residences of taxpayers and help them fill the form and pay the tax online. The move is aimed at increasing the tax collection as well as the number of taxpayers.

The proposal was approved by the south corporation’s standing committee on Thursday while it would need the House’s nod for implementation.

The standing committee chairman, Rajdutt Gahlot, said that SDMC was planning to hire an agency for providing the doorstep service. “A call centre will receive a request and a unique token number be generated and shared with the citizen for all future references. On successful completion of the property tax transaction, mobile sahayaks shall collect a nominal facilitation fee from the taxpayer.”

The facilitation fee has been capped at Rs 100 per successful transaction.

“Working hours of mobile sahayaks will be from 8 am to 8 pm. The return can be filed through mobile or web application only,” stated the proposal.

“For an organisation engaged in online tax collection for years, SDMC’s inability to fix its own website is hard to understand. Even harder to comprehend is their proposal to go for door-to-door collection, a health hazard for the staff of the outsourced company to be engaged as well as the taxpayer.”

“SDMC has been maintaining collection but unsuccessful in increasing tax net. To create an authentic database of taxpayers and dwelling units, a new software has been developed. But efforts are being taken to also assist those who are not familiar with technology.”