Bhubaneswar, Feb. 25: Residents will be able to pay property tax online from next month.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has decided to introduce a geographic information system-based revenue management to ease property tax collection.
"The online payment system will help us pay our taxes in a hassle-free way from home," said Ghatikia resident Janani Maharana.
Residents are optimistic with the corporation's latest move. "The civic body's online services are helpful for those, who do not have time to visit the corporation office to collect birth or death certificates or such other documents. The online citizen services are making things easier," said social activist Sailabala Padhi.
The state housing and urban development department, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and a Gurgaon-based company have signed a tripartite agreement for implementation of this e-municipality project that intends to make collection and payment of property tax simpler and hassle-free.
"We have roped in IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure & Services Limited to implement the e-municipality project. The private partner will implement the scheme under the National Mission Mode Project," said a corporation official.
While a sum of Rs 1.38 crore will be spent as software module cost, Rs 1.14 crore will be spent on hardware and networking, Rs 4.63 crore on database, Rs 19 lakh on data digitisation, Rs 18 lakh for training resource persons and Rs 30 lakh on annual maintenance.
As part of the latest initiative, the corporation will also digitise the physical records into MS Excel files. Data of the past five years will be digitised this way. The corporation employees will also come under the human resource management system, where they will be provided with ID and passwords through which they can monitor their service diary.
"The implementation of the human resource management system will help not only the employees, but also the employer. The absentee statements and other related things will be easily monitored through this application," said the official.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, which is the state's richest civic body, has already some online services such as e-varta, citizen grievances, tendering process, kalyan mandap reservation, birth and death certificate generation and marriage certificate application for the citizens in place. The Tata Consultancy Services are implementing the services.
