Ahmedabad civic body property tax collection crosses last year’s mark

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has recovered Rs405.50 crore as property tax from the city, with the west zone as the major contributor. The civic body's collection also surpasses the Rs403.70 crore collected for the same in the last financial year.

"We have already crossed last year's mark. And with one more week to go, we expect around to collect Rs40 crore more," said Arjav Shah, deputy municipal commissioner of AMC's revenue department.

The west zone has come out as topper in all six zones of the civic body, with a property tax collection of Rs115 crore, followed by new west zone with a recovery of Rs88 crore. The Rs39 crore collected from the north zone was the lowest amount recovered.

The civic body had sealed around 24,000 properties for failing to give property tax, out of which around 80% seals were removed after recovering the tax, said Shah.

The civic body has also launched an interest rebate scheme on due property tax. The scheme was launched on February 25 and will last for one month. "During the period of implementation of the interest rebate scheme, we have recovered Rs48.50 crore and we expect to recover Rs20 crore more in the remaining two days," said Shah, who appealed to the people to take maximum benefit of the scheme.

Moreover, the civic body's income from professional tax has also increased by nearly Rs7.31 crore as compared to last year. In the financial year 2009-10, the civic body's income from professional tax stood at Rs60 crore, which has increased to Rs67.31 crore as on March 23, 2011.