Reeling under a severe financial crisis, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has decided to hire an independent agency to survey properties to ensure that all properties in the area come under its tax net. The move, which is the first of its kind, aims at augmenting the revenue without increasing the existing tax rate or imposing any new tax. The NDMC will be also issuing a unique property identification code (UPIC) to each property under its jurisdiction.

As per the plan, an agency will be hired by the civic body for conducting a survey of the existing properties, map the buildings and on the basis of its size and other factors, print out a bill on the spot. The corporation will spend Rs 10 crore for surveying the properties under its jurisdiction so that each property can be given an unique property identification code. The provision for this fund has also been made in the budget proposals for the year 2013-14.

GPS-enabled hand-held devices will capture data and transfer it real time to the property tax server at the data centre of the corporation. A senior official said that the agency, along with the survey also allot numbers to properties in unauthorised regularised colonies and urbanised villages. “The Corporation is duty bound to allot numbering of properties and this will be done so that people do not face any difficulty in tracing the address of a particular property,”said the official.

To expedite the process, the corporation had to modify some of the conditions in tender documents. Earlier, the NDMC had invited the bid from agencies having experience of similar work in city having 5 lakh units. From the figures available with the corporation, an estimated 40 lakh properties exist in the Capital. But only 10 lakh properties are assessed for property tax in the absence of proper data. Similarly, there are around 9 lakh properties in North Delhi areas but in only one-third of it, owners pay tax.