Digitised property records give windfall gains to North Delhi Municipal Corporation

NEW DELHI: The unique property tax identification code (UPIC) brought into parlance towards the end of 2014 has resulted in windfall gains in tax collection for North Delhi Municipal Corporation. The unique codes, usage of which picked up momentum in 2015, brought more properties under the tax bracket making it difficult for owners to evade taxation.

The corporation's property tax collection almost doubled in the last financial year. It earned Rs 613 crore in 2016-17 (65% increase) against Rs 371 crore in 2015-16. The UPIC project involves door-to-door survey and generation of a unique IDfor every property. The total number of taxpayers increased from 3,95,043 to 4,40,145in 2016-17.

"The project is part of the programme to widen the tax base, digitise property tax records and maintain it in electronic form, synchronisation of data with the corporation's online system and UPIC data," said P K Gupta, north corporation commissioner.

Before the UPIC project, many property owners undervalued or under-measured their properties while filing tax returns. "It was not possible for the inspectors to verify the lakhs of properties to check whether the owners have filed correct returns. This resulted in tax evasion," said an official.

Property owners have now been given a unique smart card. When they swipe their UPIC card, all details of their properties are displayed on the screen and they have to file tax returns accordingly.

So far, 6.19 lakh properties have been surveyed and the process is on to bring more properties in the tax bracket. "Around 70% of properties have been surveyed. The returns would grow when all property owners get UPIC cards by the end of December," said an official. The growth in the earnings is good news for the financially weak civic body as it can now pay salaries to employees on time.