Ghaziabad: Civic body officials directed to speed up tax collection to meet fiscal targets

They said against the set target of ₹406 crore for fiscal 2024-25, the civic agency so far has realised ₹225 crore from residential and commercial properties

The Ghaziabad municipal corporation is struggling to achieve its property tax target of ₹406 crore for the current financial year owing to pending bills that are yet to be raised for about 100,000 untaxed and new properties, said municipal officials.

The civic agency overall has about 452,000 taxable properties currently, while the GIS survey, which ended in 2022, had found an additional 172,000 properties that are beyond the tax purview as these were newly constructed or were left out of tax assessment over the years. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

They said against the set target of ₹406 crore for fiscal 2024-25, the civic agency so far has realised ₹225 crore from residential and commercial properties.

Senior officials have directed the persons in charge of all five zones to expedite realisation of taxes and also to match the new properties found under the GIS survey. The survey got completed in 2022 and was aimed to find the untaxed and new properties in the corporation’s jurisdiction area.

“All officials in charge of zones have been asked to expedite tax collection. Properties that were identified in the GIS survey should be matched and verified with physical properties. They have also been asked to identify major defaulters and act against them. Strict instructions have been issued to meet the targets,” said Vikramaditya Malik, municipal commissioner.

The officials have also asked the officers to identify and target untaxed flats in high-rises and bring them under the tax ambit.

Earlier, in July, 2024, a survey by the corporation indicated that the corporation jurisdiction area has about 319 residential high-rises comprising about 124,874 flats. Of these, 99,765 were paying the tax while 25,109 were left out of the tax ambit.

The officials said the civic agency overall has about 452,000 taxable properties currently, while the GIS survey, which ended in 2022, had found an additional 172,000 properties that are beyond the tax purview as these were newly constructed or were left out of tax assessment over the years.

“We are trying to meet the tax collection target, and pending tax bills are being assessed and will be sent to about 100,000 properties. These primarily include properties that were out of the tax ambit or are newly constructed. We are expecting to send these bills at the earliest to achieve the target,” said Sanjeev Sinha, chief tax assessment officer, municipal corporation.