Cuttack, March 15: The civic body has begun to computerise data as part of its much-awaited e-municipality project that will allow residents to pay their holding tax online.

The municipal corporation plans to collect holding tax through general packet radio service (GPRS)-enabled hand-held devices from a few wards in the next couple of months.

It will shortly invite fresh tenders for the procurement of at least 10 such devices. Though it had floated tenders for the purchase of the gadgets last year, it did not receive any applications, municipal commissioner Gyana Das said.

Das said the corporation had already earmarked Rs 20 lakh in its budget for 2016-17 for the online holding tax collection system.

The system has already started in Bhubaneswar where civic officials, equipped with the devices, visit residences and business establishments across the city to collect the tax.

The corporation has also started the process of storing data, including tax amounts to be paid as per the plinth area and type of holding (either residential or commercial), in computerised form.

According to an official of the civic body, as the gadgets will be GPRS-enabled, the corporation servers will receive an electronic message after any payment is made through the tax collectors, either by cash or card.

The new initiative is expected to reduce human errors and scope of corruption by making the tax collectors accountable for each collection of dues under their jurisdiction. The devices will generate the bills and after the transaction process is over, the information will be sent immediately to the central server.

The corporation also plans to introduce online payment of other taxes to enable residents to make online payments by the year-end.

A senior civic official said the online payment system would be carried out through the corporation's official website and will be introduced after the bank gateway system is finalised, which may take another six to seven months.

"The introduction of the online tax collection systems will be crucial as the corporation targets Rs 10 crore revenue generation through holding tax in the current financial year," said Cuttack Municipal Corpration's licence standing committee chairman Bikash Behera.

Senior civic officials said, the corporation has decided to spend another Rs 21 lakh towards implementation of e-office, digital document management system and launch of a mobile-based application for grievances in the next financial year.

The mobile-based application will start with an objective to allow the residents to file any complaint regarding civic issues, including irregularities in solid waste management and later, cover other issues.

Girish Agarwal, a 46-year-old businessman from CDA said the new system will be of great help, especially to people who live far away from the civic office or are too busy to manually pay taxes. "Earlier I used to come down to the municipality office to pay the holding tax, which was very time consuming due to the distance between the two locations. If the online system is introduced, it will not only save time but will also be of great help for the businessman community," he said.

According to proposals, the civic body will spend Rs 10 lakh to implement the e-office project that aims to ensure paperless work and electronic storage of confidential data and records. The e-office project will be launched with assistance from the general administration department and officials of National Informatics Centre for necessary technical support.

"We have already begun the process of introduction of e-office project with internal geographic information system-mapping of the departments within the corporation," Das added.