Over five lakh property owners in the city could soon get all property records, including tax details, at the click of mouse. The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is set to become the first civic body in the state to make available online records of all its five lakh properties. Apart from this, the corporation has recently conducted geographical information system GIS mapping of all properties in city.

Talking to media men, municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta said on Tuesday, "The project has several advantages both for residents and the civic body. Property owners can now get details regarding the property on the NMC website or can also check them online. This could include all details related to ownership , tax payment, arrears and corporation action against the owner." At present, computerisation in the department is limited to tax assessment and billing.

Gupta added, "The corporation will get all the property records scanned before putting them online. As phase-I of the project, the NMC has begun an exercise to revaluate properties of 20 wards (from 75 wards) across 10 zones in the city." As per the City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948, revaluation of properties is mandatory every five years. The last revision was done in eight years back in 2000.

Property tax will be calculated on the basis of the rental value or the annual letting value of the property. The revaluation exercise essentially involves the revision of standard rent of properties in a particular area. The corporation has catergorised non-commercial properties depending on its use while calculating their rent.

"We will complete revaluation of over 1.25 lakh properties from 20 wards by mid-January and will be able to issue them demand notes too. Civic body has already completed revaluation of 6000 properties and issued demand notes within last 10 days" Gupta added.

However, in rest of the 55 wards, the civic body has started issuing property tax demand notes on old structure. Almost 65% owners have been issued demand notes till date, Gupta said.

Tax on rented properties to come down

NMC has a Diwali gift for landlords. As per the new property tax evaluation system, tax on rented properties will go down significantly. Gupta said, "In layman's terms, the property tax of rented buildings will be equivalent to two months' rent instead of five months' rent in the earlier system.'' As per the new tax evaluation formula, the occupancy factor for rented buildings is two against one for properties that are being used by the owner. This means that the tax levied on a rented property will be twice than if it was occupied by the owner.