Mumbai: BMC falls short in property tax collection ahead of Feb 4 Budget announcement

The BMC will present the budget for the Financial Year 2023 -24 on Saturday. But so far it has managed to collect 55% of property tax, the second-highest source of income.

The civic authority has estimated to collect a total of ₹7,000 crore of revenue from property tax by March 31.

Last year the BMC had collected ₹5,792 crore, while the estimate was ₹5,400 crore. In 2022-23, the civic body had set its target at ₹7,000 crore.

However, the state government’s decision to exempt residential properties up to 500 sq ft from property tax has resulted in a loss of ₹462 crore.

BMC falls short of target

The assessor and collection department (A&C) of the BMC has managed to recover around ₹3,900 crore by January 31. Since they have only two months left, the civic authority has assigned a target for each official of the A&C department.

Accordingly, the officials are focusing on the biggest defaulters such as builders and are convincing them to pay tax to avoid action, said a civic source. Last year at the same time the property tax collection was ₹3,750.

There is a revision in property tax after every five years which was supposed to be done in 2020, but the hike was postponed for two years during Covid pandemic.