Patna, Nov. 11: The citizens residing in the New Capital circle of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) will no more have to travel all the way to the civic body’s headquarters to procure birth certificates. A visit to the citizen civic centre inaugurated today on Boring Canal Road would serve the purpose.

The facility on Boring Canal Road is the seventh citizen civic centre in the city. Five of them are dedicated tax collection centres.

The one inaugurated in February at the civic body’s headquarters near GPO roundabout issues birth and death certificates besides collecting taxes. The Boring Canal Road centre would be the second facility of the civic body to register births and deaths.

Inaugurating the citizen civic centre on Boring Canal Road, PMC additional commissioner (planning and development) Chandrama Singh said people would be able to collect birth and death certificates as well as pay holding tax and water supply tax at the facility.

Cyber Infodev Ltd, a Noida-based firm, runs the civic centres in public-private partnership (PPP) mode. “So far, our experience with the organisation has been good. Now, we are collecting more revenue with more transparency. This is an effective model under the PPP,” Singh said.

An official responsible for running the centres said Rs 2.84 crore was collected till September this year since the inauguration of the first such facility in November 2009. The official, however, admitted that the annual targets were not being met with because of lack of awareness and discipline among taxpayers.

The holding tax collection of the PMC has been poor traditionally. Inadequate number of holding tax collectors and lack of awareness among people bled PMC over the years.

There are about 70,000 holdings (houses) but only 45 holding tax collectors in PMC’s New Capital circle.

“The holding tax revenue collection target in the New Capital circle is Rs 22 crore in the current fiscal. Unfortunately, the collection has not been encouraging in the past several years,” a senior PMC official said.

In a bid to boost its revenue, the PMC is planning to introduce an online tax payment system on the pattern of Municipal Corporation of Delhi. “The PMC will develop a server system to ease the excessive burden of its officials and make the tax collection procedure more people friendly,” an official said.