• Rs. 169 crore Property Tax
• Rs. 93.10 crore Water Tax
• Rs. 14.40 cr. plan approval fee
• Rs. 6.68 cr. trade licence fee

By S.T. Ravikumar

Mysore/Mysuru: Usually any meeting to discuss the finances of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) attended by people’s representatives, citizens, NGOs and representatives of organisations turns into a platform for the participants to hit out at the officials for poor tax recovery and shoddy revenue generation.

But belying the negativity, the MCC has collected a record Rs. 310.49 crore taxes in the last financial year till March 31, 2023. As a continued incentive to the taxpayers, the MCC has announced the annual tax rebate of five percent if the payment is made in the month of April.

Money sanctioned by the Government is not regular and in financially constrained years, not a single rupee comes from the Government and there are years when the State Government has left MCC high and dry, impacting local development works.

However, with the record tax collection in the last financial year, the Civic Body is slowly moving towards self-reliance.

Of the Rs. 310.49 crore taxes collected, Rs. 169 crore has been collected as property tax, Rs. 93.1 crore as water tax, Rs. 14.4 crore as approval fee, Rs. 6.68 crore as trade licence fee, Rs. 3.52 crore as rent from commercial complexes, Rs. 64 lakh as fee from advertisement hoarding and Rs. 23.13 lakh from other income sources.

Seven-Year Tax Data
Financial Year	Tax collected
2022-2023	Rs. 310.49 crore
2021-2022	Rs. 280.69 crore
2020-2021	Rs. 204.96 crore
2019-2020	Rs. 218.15 crore
2018-2019	Rs. 210.47 crore
2017-2018	Rs. 194.80 crore
2016-2017	Rs. 175.97 crore

Streamlining tax collection

As part of the tax collection strategy, officials from all the nine Zonal Offices of the MCC were tasked with targets and a regular follow-up by the respective Revenue Officers, Zonal Assistant Commissioners and finally the MCC Commissioner G. Lakshmikantha Reddy. The targets were met most of the time and if not, the real problems or glitches in tax collection were identified and rectified.

This streamlining of the tax collection, fixing targets, effective monitoring by the senior officers and the co-operation from the Corporators and other elected representatives including the Mayor and Deputy Mayor has resulted in the record collection. Every elected representative was taken into confidence and these efforts paid off, MCC officers told Star of Mysore.

Loopholes plugged

Though the MCC has been carrying out regular civic works earlier also, the tax collection targets had remained low despite efforts and there were many loopholes. And due to the huge revenue deficit, the Civic Body used to keep the bills of the contractors pending, leading to protests. Now with a comfortable revenue position, the MCC has been clearing pending bills on seniority basis.

In the 2021-22 financial year, the MCC had collected a tax of Rs. 280.69 crore from all sources and in 2020-21, due to the worst COVID-19 pandemic, the MCC had to satiate itself with a revenue collection of Rs. 204.96 crore. When compared to the tax data of 2016-2017 financial year where Rs. 175.97 crore was collected, the last financial year (2022-2023) saw a double collection of Rs. 310.49 crore.

The MCC has already begun the tax collection for the next financial year and has plans to collect Rs. 100 crore in April as property tax and water tax.

‘Online payments helped’

There was a huge dent in the MCC revenue during COVID and even after the pandemic situation eased, people were scared of crowds and were reluctant to stand in queues to pay their taxes. Later, we introduced and streamlined tax collection through online mediums where people could pay taxes from the comforts of their homes. The Revenue Officers, Vani Vilas Water Works (VVWW) officers and staff, elected representatives and the public have co-operated so that we can carry out development works.”

— G. Lakshmikantha Reddy, MCC Commissioner

‘Make use of 5% rebate’ 

I appeal to the taxpayers to make use of the five percent rebate announced by the MCC for tax payment in the month of April.  In the last financial year, I had conducted a series of meetings at all the nine Zonal Offices of the MCC and took the officers and elected representatives into confidence. Targets were set with the help of senior officers and the Commissioner and the collections were regularly monitored. The efforts paid off and we are planning to maintain the same tempo in the next financial year too. — Shivakumar, Mayor