The online property tax payment system which was started by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) in 2014 has failed to perform as intended so far. The officers concerned said that the system had worked for a short period of time after it had been launched and then turned nearly non-functional due to technical snags.
The municipal officers have, however, said that efforts are being made to fix the problem at the earliest. “The system would resume in a fortnight or so,” an officer said. Currently, one comes to MCD to pay the property tax.
Kishannagar councillor Nandini Sharma said, “Residents are facing problems because of the absence of online property tax payment system. It is inconvenient for the citizens like the elderly ones to come here to pay the tax. MCD conducted tax payment camps in various areas till last year. But this year, things are slow and the people are facing problems. We are trying to persuade the municipal commissioner into resuming the camps.”
Quizzed over the matter, the municipal commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey said, “I am aware of the problem. I have talked to the tax superintendents on the issue too. The online portal is under testing process which is most likely to be completed in 15 days.”
MCD tax revenue superintendent Poonam Rawat said, “The online payment system failed because the online server crashed. We have asked the company to fix the problem which is likely to be resolved by the end of this month.”
She further said, “It is very difficult for us to conduct tax payment camps in various areas as the process to compile or save the data from all the camps is a tough task. But if we receive more demands from the councillors to conduct property tax payment camps we would surely think about it.”
It is pertinent to mention here that at the time of its launch, the online property tax payment facility was the first of its kind in Uttarakhand. In the experimental stage during the first week of this system, 10,000 buildings were to be covered and after a week of the system being fully operational, the MCD was to cover all the buildings in Dehradun from where the corporation received property tax.
However, the system collapsed shortly after its launch due to technical snags.
According to the officials, the property tax collection target of `25 crore for financial year 2018-19 would be achieved soon as tax from some commercial property payers-which is considerably higher than residential property tax- is yet to be received.