Property tax payment in India gets easy

Let’s begin with this discourse. At times we find that any issue or the maturity of any subject (that was waited for long) gets complete all of a sudden and we remain awestruck. During this time astonishment more than contentment reigns. These incidents may have happened with you also. If they haven’t, go through the following lines. It may appear to you as the same experience.

It has come to the knowledge that in the realm of India at the behest of Chennai Corporation the process of remitting property tax has got easier. How? Thanks to the bizarre yet brilliant endeavor of the Chennai Corporation, one can make payments by means of using GPRS-enabled mobile phones. There is hardly any doubt that this is a breakthrough in a country infamous for lackadaisical and lackluster attitudes.

Speaking on the launch, Mayor M. Subramanian said the civic body had introduced quite a lot of modes of payment to develop property tax collection. The initiatives had proved beneficial, with the collection improving from Rs.231.94 crore in 2006-07 to Rs.323.80 crore in 2008-09. The target this fiscal is Rs.375 crore. “We are confident of achieving the target… till yesterday [Tuesday] property the tax collection was Rs.117 crore,” he added.

The process is simple, without a shred of doubt. All one has to is to send a text message ‘ngpay’ to the number 56767. The concerned person, almost instantly, will receive an SMS with a link to download an application form from ngpay, the private firm that provides the payment solution. There is another little job. He/she has to go through a one-time registration process, submitting details such as name, address and e-mail ID.

Manoj Nair, senior vice-president of ngpay, said that once the bill number assigned to the assessee is fed into the application form, the property tax details would be available. The tax could be paid using Visa or Master credit cards or Visa debit cards. HDFC Bank customers could pay by giving their account number.

It’s definite other city corporations will follow the example soon.