More properties in four cities under tax net soon

Dehradun, April 23
To check property tax evasion, the Department of Urban Development will soon introduce Geographic Information System (GIS) property mapping (scale 1:100) in Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Haldwani.
With more than 50 per cent of the properties outside the tax ambit in most of the towns, the GIS mapping is expected to create a data base, increase tax collection and attain the objective of the Property Tax Management.
"As part of the pilot project, GIS mapping was undertaken in Salawala near Dehradun which revealed that more than 60 per cent of the property was not recorded. We found a huge gap when we compared the data of the survey work with our present records. The GIS mapping will not only enable the Urban Local Bodies Department to determine the number of properties in their jurisdiction, but also bring several properties under the tax net," said Radhika Jha, Project Director, Uttarakhand Urban Sector Development and Investment Programme (UUSDIP).
The exercise will help in streamlining the property tax assessment and collection system in the selected cities and in the long run it will help in increasing the revenue of the Local Bodies Department.
For undertaking a field-level survey and digitising the data of all properties in four towns of Uttarakhand, the funds will be provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The agency (for field work) will be selected through the bid system for which a request for the proposal has already been prepared. A laboratory will also be set up for imparting training to employees of the Urban Local Bodies Department. "Increasing urbanisation is inevitable and overcrowding of cities is a great challenge for sanitation, disaster management, etc. GIS and remote sensing prove useful for preparing maps, digitising spatial data," said MH Khan, officiating Deputy Programme Manager, Uttarakhand Urban Sector Development and Investment Programme.
The data collected by digital mapping from the National Remote Sensing Centre, an important segment of ISRO, will be used for the implementation of the system.