MCD’s geotagging scheme sees tepid response, only 380K enrol

MCD geotagging deadline passed with only 380,000 properties tagged out of 1.5 million target. Financial incentives proposed to boost participation.

More than a week after the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) deadline to geotag commercial and residential properties ended, only 380,000 premises have been tagged by their owners, data from the civic body has revealed.

On June 5, 2023, MCD launched a mobile app that enables property owners to geotag their property, and on December 7 that year. (AP)

Geotagging of properties means assigning a unique latitude and longitude to a property on a geographic information system (GIS) map. MCD has made geotagging of properties mandatory, with the aim to bring more people into the property tax net — Delhi is estimated to have more than 3 million buildings, but only 1.3 million are registered with the corporation.

People who tag their premises are eligible for a 10% rebate on the advance payment of property tax, but the civic body has received a tepid response so far.

On June 5, 2023, MCD launched a mobile app that enables property owners to geotag their property, and on December 7 that year, MCD set a target of completing the geotagging of 1,500,000 houses by the end of January 2024, but the response was lukewarm. The deadline was then extended multiple times — first to February 29, then to March 31 and finally to June 30. However, as of July 4, only 386,591 properties were tagged by their owners.

An MCD spokesperson said that the proposed future steps in the geotagging project will be put up before the house of councillors in the next meeting, a date for which is yet to be finalised.

Separately, a senior MCD official said that the civic body is now considering whether it should provide financial incentives to tagged properties to encourage more people to share their details. “We are thinking about providing a 2% incentive on property tax with a maximum limit of ₹500 so that more people take up geotagging but the proposal will need approval from the house of councillors,” the official said, on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, a large number of property taxpayers had earlier complained that technical glitches prevented them from submitting their details with the civic body.