Important to bring 18 lakh Bengaluru property owners under tax bracket: Shivakumar

Bengaluru, March 12 (IANS) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Monday said that there are 18 lakh property owners in Bengaluru who do not come under the property tax bracket and it is important to bring them into the tax bracket.

Addressing a press conference at Vidhana Soudha, he said: “The property taxes were revised upwards in 2016 by about 20 per cent for residential buildings and 25 per cent for commercial properties. The property tax rates were not increased for the last eight years. After deliberations, we have decided to fix the property tax increase to 10 per cent.”

“We are giving an opportunity to all those who have not declared properties till now. Now, they can declare their properties and obtain a property tax number and get a khata from BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike). For all those whose documents are in order, BBMP will issue A khata and B khata for others,” he said.

The Congress government has introduced “revolutionary steps for the citizens of Bengaluru city by replacing the red tape and corruption-ridden building plan approval process with a decentralised automated online approval process”, the Deputy Chief Minister said.

“All residential constructions, up to four units, on a site of up to 50×80 feet dimension can now get their building plans approved online from authorized architects or engineers through the new scheme ‘Nambike Nakshe’. This process eliminates the painful process of running from pillar to post in BBMP offices to obtain their building plan approved,” he said.

“Besides the new building plan approval mechanism, we are also introducing other revolutionary steps such as standardized and simplified property tax payment system and khata issue system,” he added.

“These schemes are introduced under the new Brand Bengaluru initiative. From now on, anyone planning to build a home of up to four units on sites of up to 50×80 feet dimension, can now approach any authorized engineer or architect and get their building plan approved online. Nambike Nakshe is a trust-based system in which the architects and engineers are empowered to self-declare the plan online and obtain the sanction plan by paying specified fees. This will save precious time for the public and also eliminates corruption,” Shivakumar said.

“The engineers and architects must be registered with the BBMP to be eligible to obtain online sanction plans for their clients. The submitted building plans will be evaluated using technology. Fees also can be paid online. Last year, 9,000 people were issued sanction plans and the number is likely to go up to 10,000 this year,” he added.

“We would like to follow a trust-based system where we are giving the freedom of self-declaring their property details to the public and engineers and architects. This was one of the 70,000 suggestions that came as part of the Brand Bengaluru initiative. This is the first of many and we will implement many more suggestions in the days to come,” he said.

In the first phase, the ‘Nambike Nakshe’ will be introduced on a pilot basis in the wards coming under Rajarajeshwarinagar and Dasarahalli zones and it will be extended to other areas of Bengaluru in the days to come.

“There was a lot of confusion about property tax zones as the properties were divided into 18 zones when the Unit Area Value property tax was introduced in 2008. In order to remove this confusion, we have decided to simplify the system. The zones have been classified into six zones now based on asset classes – residential (own and rented), commercial, industrial, star hotel, empty lands with rebate and empty lands without rebate,” he said.

–IANS

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