VMC eyes 100 crore revenue by March end

Special focus on property tax and building plans

Vijayawada: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has set a target to collect Rs 100 crore through property tax and issuing building plans by the end of March. Property tax and developmental charges collected by issuing building plans are the main revenue sources for the VMC.
 
The civic body has collected property tax of Rs 78 crore and has been trying to reach the target by the end of this financial year.  The VMC set the target of Rs. 80.93 crore for the financial year 2015-16. It also estimated revenue of Rs .8.36 lakh from charges in lieu of property tax from railways.  Total estimated revenue on property tax is Rs 89.29 crore.

Municipal commissioner G Veerapandian said that the VMC has collected Rs 78 crore property tax and efforts were on to reach the target of Rs 88 crore. He said that the special drive conducted in September 2015 on tax collections gave rich dividends to the VMC. It collected most of the pending taxes last year and again conducting the special drive in March 2016 to reach the target.
 
Online building plan system introduced by VMC is giving fruitful results. So far, the VMC collected Rs 7.40 crore by issuing building plans to the applicants during the last three months. The Commissioner said that the VMC earned Rs 40 lakh in January, 2016, Rs 3 crore in February 2016, Rs.4 crore in March.  

The VMC set the target of Rs.10 crore on building plans and development charges. With the construction activity gradually picking up in the city, the civic body received 581 applications and 530 applications were cleared for construction of buildings. Online system is done without human intervention.

The applicant has to submit the building plan details online and the special software verifies the plan and grants permission for construction of building.  The Commissioner said initially the town planning department faced some problems with the software, but all problems were solved by February 2016. He said the applicant must submit correct details about the plan and produce all necessary documents to get the building plan online.

He said special software rejects the faulty building plans. The applicant has to re submit the application to obtain the building plan.

By and large the VMC is trying to collect Rs.100 crore by the end of this year on property tax and development charges. The VMC is also planning to give occupancy certificate through online. The applicant has to upload the building photo to get the occupancy certificate. Manual procedure on issuing occupancy certificate will be stopped and online system will be introduced very soon, said the Commissioner.