Agartala, July 14 (TIWN): The Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC) is expecting new rules for increasing property tax revenue generation, official sources said.

A highly placed source inside the newly formed Corporation today said that the Institutional Development Consultant, consultancy service appointed for different projects of the AMC, submitted a draft property tax rules based on a new system which is currently pending with the state government.

The figure of total families living in AMC was pegged at 1,04,000 as per BPL census in 2009. Over 66,070 holdings are currently registered with the Corporation against an estimated 90,000 holdings in the AMC area.

A special drive was recently taken up to realize the tax arrears during 2013-2014 after having a re-assessment of the ARV as far as practicable. Under the current circumstances, the Corporation is seriously considering feasible options of increasing revenue generation sans rise in the tax rates, thr source said.

The source further added that the new rules adopted by the IDC for the draft Property Tax Rules aims at simplification and rationalization of Property Tax.

“If the new Rules come into force, there will be a huge potential for upward trend of revenue collection”, the source said.

The AMC has a steady rise in property tax collection for the past four financial years. The sector generated Rs. 1 crore 33 lakh in 2010-2011, Rs. 2 crore 14 lakh 47 thousand came from Property Tax in 2011-2012. The erstwhile municipal council authorities collected Rs. 2 crore 35 lakh 87 thousand in 2012-2013. The sector had a massive leap with the special initiative for raising property tax collection in 2013-2014 and Rs. 3 crore 20 lakh 77 thousand was collected.

Asked about the next target, the source said the Corporation was expecting to collect Rs. 4 crore this financial year.

Opposition Corporation members including senior member Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya recently protested against these new rules saying that the Corporation was trying to devise new ways of imposing shadow taxes on the civic residents. “We are ready to agree if there is clean no-shadow proposals from the Corporation. We are ready to agree for development projects”, he said.