Patna, July 14: To ensure more revenue for the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC), the state urban development department has hired a private agency to prepare a detailed satellite map of the entire urban property in the town location.

According to sources, a Gurgaon-based private company is preparing a data bank that will form and constitute the department’s store of geographical or geospatial information system map for the assessment of the actual use of property and fixation of the holding tax in Patna and some other towns.

The department, along with the private agency, is holding a workshop for the PMC officials and ward councillors tomorrow to educate them to co-operate with the surveyors when they start the manual verifIcation of the corporation area after it is done through the satellite-imaging system.

During the workshop, councillors and other officials of the corporation will also be invited to suggest methods for better tax collection by the civic body.

“The private agency SGS Infotec Private Ltd has almost completed its work of mapping the city through geographical or geospatial information system. We were called for a meeting with the people working on the project yesterday and discussed the outcome. It has emerged that at least 2 lakh properties in the corporation area are still not allotted holding number and hence pay no taxes to the PMC,” mayor Afzal Imam told The Telegraph.

He added that surveyors would soon start manual detailing of the satellite map on ward-wise basis. “It will also help prepare a better city development plan for Patna for which another Delhi-based private firm has been hired,” Imam added.

According to sources, the GIS mapping of state’s select 26 urban centres will be carried out to provide analytical database for 26 cities and towns for urban management including fixing and collecting holding taxes according to state government’s urban reform programme in collaboration with Department of Foreign Development (DFID) of British government.

The same agency, which is mapping the state capital has been assigned to prepare a GIS map for Bodhgaya too.

Sources said that the PMC, one of the poorest municipal corporations in the country, earns less than Rs 25 crore in holding taxes every year.

While there are only 1.75 lakh holdings in the city — even as number of electricity connection is as high as 3.69 lakh in the same area — the tax collection rate of the PMC is abysmally poor and the civic body fails to fulfil even 50 per cent of its own target every year.

In recent times, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has been laying stress on generating more revenue in the civic body.