Record births, pay taxes easily

Patna, Feb. 7: Paying your civic taxes and applying for birth and death certificates just got simpler today with the inauguration of a citizen civic centre at Patna Municipal Corporation headquarters near GPO roundabout.

The centre would collect taxes like holding tax and water supply tax apart from issuing birth and death certificates. The other citizen civic centres in the corporation area are only meant for collecting taxes.

Inaugurating the Neev Citizen Civic Centre, Patna Municipal Corporation commissioner Manish Kumar said: “This is the sixth fully computerised property tax collection centre of PMC under a public-private partnership model with Cyber Infordev Limited, a part of Drishtee Group. We have been collecting more revenue with increased transparency. This is really a very effective model under the PPP.”

Officials said tax collection through civic centres ensures that taxes are deposited in the corporation’s account with a proper record of the transaction.

Patna Municipal Corporation plans to expand the number of centres to at least 20 in two years.

“To make things simpler for property taxpayers to pay their holding tax, the PMC had opened citizen civic centres in its circle offices at Kankerbagh circle, Bankipore circle, New Capital circle, Patna City circle and Maurya Lok shopping complex. The centres received good response from the people,” said a senior corporation official.

Inadequate number of holding tax collectors coupled with other obstacles often leave the Patna Municipal Corporation with less revenue collection with regard to holding tax. For 70,000 holdings (houses) under Patna Municipal Corporation’s New Capital circle, there are 45 holding tax collectors and 90 holding tax collectors serve the Patna Municipal Corporation area comprising 1.2 lakh holdings.

“Regarding the online payment system, the Patna Municipal Corporation will develop a good server system to execute the heavy load of payment procedure. This will ease the excessive burden from few functionaries and make it more people-friendly,” a senior civic official said.

The Patna Municipal Corporation has also drafted proposals to invite co-operation from banks in this regard. A senior corporation officer said: “According to the plan, the online tax filing facility will also be available at all citizen civic centres.”

The Patna Municipal Corporation is also planning to launch an online payment system on the pattern of Municipal Corporation of Delhi.